All We Have to Sell
by Yvi
Summary: The other cancan girls and how they came to be there. If I ever finish this, there’ll be a chapter for each one, not including the Four Whores. [recently edited]
1. Tattoo

Disclaimer: All due apologies to Baz et al. This is just me speculating at the expense of several minor characters. What comes of letting me write when I'm in maudlin mode--others suffer.

* * *

Mother had teeth like broken coral and hair that straggled in front of her face like seaweed. She spent her days twisting newspapers round fish after dead fish, calling all the while in a shrill, salty voice for passerby to buy more, buy more.  
  
Father had hands barnacled with calluses and a beard that grew like a bush out of his sun-baked face. He fished by day and his catches were sold at Mother's greasy stall in the market, alongside dozens of others. By night, he smuggled on the waterfront. His wife did not approve, but it brought in more money and there was no arguing with that.  
  
They lived in a shack that always reeked of fish and the salt of the sea, nothing uncommon for their type. Their daughter was a tiny thing, all dark curls and impish eyes, who was fond of dancing down the beach, plucking shells from the slimy sand as though they were treasures. She was young enough yet to find adventure in anything, which her father used to his advantage.  
  
So Glorianne hid under the docks some nights, dirty water swirling around her ankles, keeping watch for father, ready to call out a warning if anyone came too near.  
  
A transaction went wrong one night. The water was warm and clammy against her skin, the breeze slick and oily. Glorianne counted discarded bottles until the moon slid behind the clouds like a smear of grease and there was nothing to do but listen for father to finish.  
  
They didn't know he was in the habit of bringing his daughter along to provide an extra pair of eyes and ears. She was there to hear the accusations, and though she was old enough to know what swindling was, she was not old enough to understand what this had to do with father. Knowledge was thrust upon her too abruptly, in the form of the sounds of a scuffle overhead, a truncated shout in father's voice, and the thud of something big, bigger than the shark she had once seen in the market, hitting the pier above.  
  
And she keeled over into the filthy water in the throes of too-sudden comprehension, clapping her hands over her mouth. The splash went unheard, but when she dropped her hands in order to retch, she let loose instead a wail that was impossible to mistake for the wind.  
  
She darted from her nook then and they chased her, through streets she had never been through before--or maybe she had, everything was unfamiliar in the dark--and she ran and ran, away from the docks and home and the corpse on the pier, until she had no idea where she was. When she disappeared into the darkness, scurrying ratlike through any opening she could find, they left, muttering amongst themselves "The city will kill her, she's as good as dead there." And possibly she was, for the child was never seen again.

* * *

Years later, there could be seen around the waterfront a pale girl with mischievous eyes and a wicked smile, her dark brown hair colored a vibrant red. They called her Tattoo, with good reason. She frequented the alleys just offshore, where the sailors got inked. Tattoo was more than a whore, they gave her that much, not that it was easily deniable. Any dockside slut who's been in the trade for more than a few months is bound to wither, skin stretching tight into red and brown wrinkles by sunlight and strain. This girl remained fair, never so much as freckling; it proved her passport to a sort of underground fame.  
  
Supposedly she had been in every town along the coast, traveling with whoever was willing to take her and showing off her artwork to pay her way. No one knew when she had started her collection, though several artists claimed to have contributed to it. They loved inking her flesh and she encouraged it for all she was worth. A nervous apprentice once marred a design, his shaking hand creating an inconsistency in the pattern she had requested. She had left in a rage, demanding full price and not spending the night, and no one thought to call her on it. If anything, the boy caught more anger than she did. From that incident onward, an unofficial rule was made clear--if their concentration was thrown enough that a mistake was made, she would raise her price and leave without staying the night. Ever afterward, her work was flawless.  
  
It was almost funny to some, that the tattooists should pay her. Others understood--it was a privilege to have dominion of that skin. To hear that smooth voice, also strangely bereft of waterside roughness, say, "Yeah, give me another one, right here." To see the needle biting into creamy skin, incongruous amongst the weathered sailors and streetwalkers that usually patronized such places. To see her smile sassily before provocatively chewing on a lip as the needle moved, inking a dragon on her forearm, an angel on her thigh, a stained-glass spray of peacock feathers between her shoulder blades. It was a privilege.  
  
And when she grew bored with the inkings and bored with her fame, she took to dancing the way she took to everything else--haphazardly, with a confident strut and a devil-may-care smile--and she did it well. She came into Montmartre by chance, having heard there were plenty of opportunities for that sort of thing. One of them presented itself when she came across an emaciated girl leaning against a building and smoking a cigarette.  
  
"Hey, c'n I have one?"  
  
The waif didn't so much as blink at the colorful arm extended before her. "Here you go."  
  
Tattoo gratefully took it and sank against the building beside her. "Thanks. So, d'you work around here?"  
  
"Yes, I'm a mermaid."  
  
Tattoo laughed, recalling her days as a siren. "I've been told the same thing, darling."  
  
The girl's pale lashes flickered and she met Tattoo's eyes from beneath a waterfall of tangled hair. "No, I'm a real mermaid. In a dancehall near here. Come by tonight, you'll see."  
  
And so she went, emanating salt and sex and the wildness of the wharfs. As always, there was a sort of primal incandescence about her, gorgeous and inscrutable in the midst of depravity, not to mention the source of much of it. The place, she noted, seemed to match her personality nicely. So when a red-mustachioed man proclaimed her perfect and made her an offer, she did not refuse. 


	2. Dominatrix

Disclaimer: Still not mine, which is a good thing, as this girl scares me.  
  
Warning: There's nothing all that bad, mind, as this is PG-13. But if you're at all averse to murder, mistaken identity, or implied mutilation, please check yourself at the chapter's title.

* * *

Meryl did not start out the way anyone knew her later in life would have expected. She never skinned kittens or dropped rats in boiling water or even shooed mice into the stove. Granted, when she finally learned to read, it was from de Sade's writings, but only because there were no other books handy. It was all the result of an accident, really.  
  
She came from a poor family and lived a doglike childhood, forever squabbling with a litter of more siblings than she could count. The weak were easily eliminated; she once saw two older brothers shove another's face into a blanket in order to get at the bread in his hand. Afterward, they paid more attention to the bread than the fact that the smaller boy neither cried out nor made any attempt to push the blanket away. Meryl herself never took things to quite that extreme, preferring instead to steal food and eat it on her own, thereby sparing herself the fighting that would undoubtedly have broken out at home. When she was old enough, she left that litter and moved into the even larger litter known as the world. If nothing else, she knew how to survive.  
  
For a time, she had a fairly decent and undeniably dull job sewing shirts. That changed when, on her way to the seamstress's to collect another load of mending, she was accosted by a large woman in a gaudy dress.  
  
"Where have you been?" the stranger demanded frantically, seizing Meryl's arm and sending the girl's basket skittering into the road.  
  
Instinctively, Meryl pulled away to retrieve it, but the woman gave her a stinging slap to the side of the head that nearly sent her sprawling into the street as well. She rose indignantly, prepared to retaliate in spite of their obvious difference in size, and then hesitated, noting that the woman's eyes were bright red in her beefy face. Meryl knew better than to argue with an irate drunkard.  
  
"Come on, girl, you've got customers waiting," the stranger slurred, grabbing her arm once again.  
  
Meryl sighed. "I'm not who you think I am," she warned, but allowed herself to be dragged along, planning on flight the instant she was released.  
  
Somehow, it didn't quite work out that way. She was all but wrenched through a doorway and up a flight of stairs. "Now this gentleman's an easy one," the woman was saying. "Nothing but the knife, and only a bit at that, d'you hear?"  
  
"Jesus, wait a minute," Meryl burst out, her voice pitched several octaves higher than usual. "What's happening, you're going to kill someone?" Her breathing had grown shallow without her realizing it. The woman had opened another door; she clawed with her free hand at whatever was within reach-- the air, the doorframe, the woman's impassive face--but received nothing for her efforts save splinters, a snort of laughter, and a viselike grip on her other arm as well. And then the woman shoved her inside.  
  
Shaking madly, Meryl fisted her hands in front of her, ready for a fight. Strangely, the room seemed to be empty, except...except. Involuntarily, her arms fell slackly to her sides. "Mother of God."  
  
Her eyes desperately settled on the first thing they noticed that was remotely familiar, which turned out to be a bed. A bed that had apparently had a few modifications made to the headboard and footboard, but a bed nonetheless. So she was in a bedroom, that much was clear, but a bedroom for what? The walls were decked with mechanisms that made her jaw drop. Some of them were familiar, like the handcuffs, though why they were lined with velvet was beyond her. Others, she couldn't begin to imagine uses for. She was still staring in openmouthed wonder-terror when a man came in through an entrance she hadn't seen and politely removed his hat. "Hello, Chantal, are you ready?"  
  
"Dear God, what is this place?" she blurted out.  
  
He looked amused. "Chantal, really."  
  
"I'm not Chantal," she said hoarsely, but he laughed quietly and hung up his coat with the unconscious dignity of a man with money.  
  
"Come now, no games today."  
  
"You've got to let me out," she protested, grasping his forearms. "I don't know what this is or what I'm doing here."  
  
He stepped back, a small frown tugging at his mouth. "No more of this, Chantal, or I'll send for the mother to punish you."  
  
"The mother?" she whispered, certain she could feel her stomach shriveling into a tiny ball. "You mean...the fat woman?"  
  
"Naturally," he said impatiently. "You know that full well. May we proceed?"  
  
Meryl didn't even want to think of what kind of punishment that mass of depravity was capable of bestowing. "Yes," she muttered, keeping her voice even. "Let's proceed."  
  
Afterward, she remembered very little, save the unspeakably nauseating sensation she had experienced when he placed the knife in her hand, and the feeling of mingled surprise and relief that had replaced it after she noticed his reaction was not at all what she had expected. It had been comforting, in a confusing way, and enough to keep her from screaming. He had left as decorously as he had come, kissing her chastely on the forehead, giving her a polite thank-you and a handful of money. She was sitting in the middle of the bed, still dazed, her earnings in her pocket and one hand loosely clasping the knife, when the door swung open again.  
  
The young woman who stormed inside really did resemble her greatly. Meryl blinked, then grinned. That was it, then; she was saved. She was about to rise with a laugh to explain the whole misunderstanding and ask if she could please leave now when her double yanked Meryl by the hair so roughly she fell off the bed.  
  
"So, you're the wretch," she spat. "You'd take my place, would you? I'll have none of it"  
  
And Meryl didn't have a chance to protest before the blows came raining down.  
  
But she hadn't grown up fighting for nothing. Meryl knew where to strike, and, forgetting she still held the knife, did so. The girl named Chantal collapsed without a sound.  
  
The two of them locked eyes for a moment, neither one comprehending the sudden pool of blood flowing over the floor. Chantal was the one who broke the gaze, by way of a sudden dimness that stole over her eyes and rendered them as good as sightless. Unable to think of a better resolution, and having thrown all rationality to the winds in light of the rather awful day she was having, Meryl half-crawled, half-staggered to the door and screamed at the top of her lungs.  
  
After what seemed like years, the fat woman from before stepped casually over the threshold. "Oh," she said mildly. "I suppose you really weren't Chantal after all."  
  
Whimpering incoherently, Meryl pointed at the body.  
  
"Excellent, then. You can stay. Chantal always kept a few books lying about; you'd do well to read them."  
  
The shock of that remark stunned Meryl too much to even cry. "I can't read and I don't want to stay."  
  
"Well, that's just too bad. You cost me one of my most popular workers, and now you'd best do something to pay me back for it. Now get dressed; the day's not over yet."  
  
There were a few peculiar sets of clothes hanging in the closet. Meryl removed one and, once she established how it was meant to be worn, donned it. Her hands did not tremble.

* * *

After the initial shock wore off, she caught on well and was soon addressing the woman as Maman, the way the other girls did. Another of the fetishists taught her to read, and Chantal's books did provide her with a great deal of material she was able to use later.  
  
She wore a domino at first, and it did look striking but it was always discarded in the end. After a few annoyingly extensive searches, she got rid of it altogether, settling instead for having one of the other girls put a few blood-red streaks in her hair. Always one to make the best of a situation, she experimented with her new job and soon there wasn't a request any client could make of her that would cause her to blanch. Maman extolled her versatility.  
  
Occasionally a client would turn her arsenal against her, rendering her unable to work for several days. Maman always saw to it that the offender was located and treated accordingly. The woman's temper was easily piqued, but she was always just.  
  
And so it was hardly a surprise when Maman was found dead, her flabby throat slit nearly all the way through, head lolling dumbly on one shoulder like an oversized cabbage. As a matter of course, the girls went their separate ways. Meryl packed up as much of her arsenal as she was able, rented a room, and began looking for work.  
  
It was difficult. Her appearance drew more stares than offers and she hated the idea of having to pass for normal. One particularly slow night, she passed a bordello she had noticed before that was dominated by a gigantic windmill. Wearing a dress that could hardly pass for normal, red and black hair hanging loose around her face, Meryl wandered into the garden to see what was to be had.  
  
And was chatting it up with a gentleman within seconds.  
  
"Your name's Domi, eh? Is that short for Dominique?"  
  
She flashed him her scarlet curve of a smile that tended to send most potential clients backing away muttering excuses. When this man showed no sign of doing so, she nibbled his fingers contently, biting down just hard enough to feel him suppress a shiver. "No." 


	3. Travesty

Thanks much to Mao for reading this through and to everyone who's left reviews. I'm still a little unsure about this, so any and all opinions are most welcome.  
  
Disclaimer: Nothing's mine but the speculation.

* * *

She had always had a sardonic sort of wit. It was unbecoming of a lady, her father would grumble, and he'd have an awful time marrying her off.  
  
It was easy for him to say; with two wives so far and nothing yet but four daughters, he had room to complain. Any wrong committed by them was always deemed "unbecoming of a lady," as if any ill carried out by a son would be acceptable. But as far as marrying them off went, he had certainly had no such trouble with his first two daughters. With them already out of the house and out of the way, he was left with the younger pair, Margot and Josephine, aged seventeen and fifteen,  
  
Josephine was a paragon of femininity, docile and downcast-eyed, with slim white hands forever embroidering pillowcases and pouring tea. Margot, who abhorred sewing and was more likely to spill tea than anything, was by far the more unladylike of the two, a trait that was to serve her well in the future. Until then, it earned her the rap.  
  
"Aren't I too old for this yet?" she complained as her stepmother brought the thin piece of wood down on her wrist. Once again, she was wondering just how much of her life she had wasted in redundant limp-wristed servility. The punishment had been administered hundreds of times for as long as she could remember and never once had it done a bit of good.  
  
"Not as long as you keep offending guests you're not," the woman answered, though she silently agreed it was a useless punishment. Margot had never before recanted her words and it was highly unlikely she would do so now.  
  
"All I told him was that he oughtn't go out to the garden in that jacket of his for fear the bees mistake him for an enormous flower. It was a bright blue jacket, for God's sake! With yellow stripes." She pulled a face. "Aspiring bohemian or foliage run amuck?"  
  
Her stepmother released her, not without a cross look that made clear just which she would have preferred. "This can't go on," she murmured, gesturing with the ineffectual switch. "You're of marrying age, you know."  
  
"Old enough to be married and young enough to be rapped both at once?" Margot exclaimed in mock wonder. "How can that be?"  
  
"It may well continue if you don't clean yourself up for young Garnier."  
  
"You can't be serious," Margot said, suddenly anxious.  
  
"Quite serious. Your father's got the negotiations all settled. He was planning to tell you this evening, but I expect things will go over a little better now that you've been warned."  
  
"Jesus Christ." Margot tore out of the room too quickly to catch her stepmother's reprimand for taking the Lord's name in vain.

* * *

She could almost have laughed at herself for being so typical. It was like a bad romance--a spirited girl is forced to marry against her will, so what does she do? She cuts off her beautiful hair, dresses as a man, and runs away, naturally. Though Margot did take some comfort in that her own hair could hardly be called beautiful--too dark, too thick to force into any of the pretty styles young ladies favored. But, she reasoned, setting the scissors down, she'd be living a farce by tomorrow all the same.  
  
It was a last resort, that was all. Attempting a rational discussion with her father had ended catastrophically, with a great deal of unladylike antics on her side and a stain on the wall left by a furiously thrown inkpot.  
  
Nearly two weeks had passed since then. More than enough time to have a few suits made, visit the bank, and hunt around for reasonably priced apartments. She could almost pity Rémi Garnier, a jilted husband before he was even a husband. But not quite. Margot had seized the idea of running away almost eagerly; after all, it wasn't as though she had anything to stay at home for. The only exception was Josephine, a thought Margot valiantly attempted to push out of her head. The girl knew what she was about, and although Margot had urged her to do the same someday, she knew full well this sister would end up packed off in marriage like the others. They had exchanged rather resigned goodbyes earlier in the day.  
  
And now Margot was ready. Never mind that she couldn't yet bring herself to slip out of the house. Standing hesitantly by the door, she reminded herself how she had practiced in the privacy of her room--how to move in the suit, how to sprawl when she sat down, how to hook a cane over one arm when she walked. How she had taught herself to lower her voice, already husky for a woman, and introduce herself as Didier. If there was anything else to learn, she would pick it up as she went along. With a final glance at her reflection-heavy-lidded and lazily casual, immaculate in pristine white spats and a gray silk top hat-she stepped into the street.  
  
Almost instantly, she forgot everything from where she had planned to rent a room to where she had planned to find work. Her fingers grew numb from so desperately clenching the handle of her suitcase as she walked down street after street, occasionally hiring a carriage to take her deeper into the city.  
  
She had nearly resigned herself to going home again when she caught sight of a slim figure in a suit and at first mistook it for a young man. When closer inspection proved it was definitely female, all other thoughts left Margot's head. The figure entered a nearby bar and Margot unthinkingly followed suit. That was comforting, at least; if she could still make awful puns, there might be hope for her yet.  
  
But her nervousness must have shown more than she thought. Almost as soon as she sat down, a woman presented her with a problem she hadn't counted on. "What happened, princess, Maman find you in bed with a girl?"  
  
Margot flinched, thinning her lips with the practiced priggishness of an idler "I am not that way inclined," she said rigidly, not bothering to deepen her voice.  
  
A laugh. "Then I don't know what the fuck you're doin' here, but we'll have to fix that."  
  
So began Margot's acquaintance with Montmartre. She settled into a small flat nearby and for the next few years became accustomed to working in the area's restaurants, the first of which was the self-proclaimed "Sapphic tavern" she had unknowingly wandered into before. It wasn't the only thing she grew accustomed to. She discovered that, in addition to being both convenient and comfortable, pants entailed much less upkeep, expenses, and trends to follow than did skirts. Oddly enough, it didn't seem to make much difference. The area was more tolerant than she would ever have anticipated; as often as not, it didn't matter whether she called herself Margot or Didier.  
  
If her family ever made any effort to find her, she heard nothing of it. Any search, she felt, was sure to fail miserably, if her father hadn't been so relieved at having her out of the house that he hadn't bothered at all. As such, things were relatively placid until Margot forgot to pay the rent when it was due. It was nothing out of the ordinary, as she almost never paid on time, but the landlady seemed to have other ideas.  
  
"Thank you," she said curtly, accepting payment. "Now take your things and get out.  
  
"But I paid."  
  
The old woman spread her arms in an insincere apology. "You're bad for business. Several of your neighbors have complained of being made uncomfortable by you."  
  
"Because I go about as a man, shameless hussy that I am, is that it? Tell the bigots about George Sand, Jeanne d'Arc."  
  
"Not only that," the landlady continued obliviously, "but I've been too lenient with you. This time the rent may be three months late; next time, God knows..."  
  
Margot walked away in disgust before the woman could finish her tirade. Within ten minutes, she shoved her things into a suitcase, went into the building next door, and knocked at random on the door of one of the apartments. It was answered by a cherubic-faced girl with sulfur-yellow ringlets that nearly made Margot's eyes water. All the same, she cleared her throat.  
  
"I have a request to make of you, mademoiselle--?"  
  
The innocent face smiled coyly, giving lie to its owner's true age. "Babydoll to you, m'sieur."  
  
Margot tipped her hat, revealing the dark hair neatly folded beneath. "And Margot to you," she replied, smiling inwardly at the girl's surprise. "I need someone to shack up with for a bit, just until I move in somewhere else. I've a job and can pay what you like. As for sleeping arrangements, I'll be perfectly good unless you'd rather I be otherwise."  
  
With a girlish laugh, the blond held open the door.  
  
As Margot unpacked, the girl who called herself Babydoll occupied herself by humming a tune and practicing a dance across the room. On an impulse, Margot stood up to join her. The fair-haired girl made no effort to conceal her surprise at the latter's skill. "My God," she remarked once they finished, "you're a walking travesty."  
  
Margot sat back down, smiling languidly. "Yes, my dear, so I am."  
  
"Where did you learn to dance that way?"  
  
"We've got dancers like that in the bar where I work, that's all. I just picked it up."  
  
"You happened to pick up the cancan and all you do for a living is serve drinks?" Babydoll demanded incredulously. "There's no money in that. Don't tell me you're above other things."  
  
Margot's lips thinned. It was true, there were some who had a weakness for that sort of thing. They liked to go through all the masculine layers and find that what was underneath was so undeniably female. "Not that it's any of your business, but I'll take what I can to make ends meet."  
  
The blond seemed pleased. "Good, so you're not one of those high and mighty types. But I still say you're wasting yourself by working at a bar when there're other places that'd pay a lot better for someone like you."  
  
Margot shrugged. "Think what you like."  
  
"I think," pronounced Babydoll, "that you're an idiot."  
  
"In that case, I'm glad to be in such good company."  
  
Babydoll frowned, obviously trying to figure out whether she had been complimented or insulted. "But never mind," she said after a minute. "I'm taking you to work with me tomorrow. If you like it, and I think you will, they ought to let you stay. 'Course, you'd probably have to wear a skirt."  
  
"Forget it."  
  
"Oh, come off it. This city can't have more than a handful of courtesans like you."  
  
"Is that what you call yourself, a courtesan?" muttered the brunette, taking in the other girl's cheap dress.  
  
Babydoll waved a hand dismissively. "Oh, this is only for during the day. Wait till you see me dressed up for the night."  
  
Margot let her imagination take hold of that for a moment. "Even if I go with you, I won't stay."  
  
"Trust me, you'll get sucked in. I've been there since it opened and I know these things."  
  
To her surprise, she was. Babydoll--whose name, as it turned out, was Noelle--hadn't underestimated the magnetism of her workplace. And so Margot, rather than leaving after a few minutes, as she had intended, stood patiently apart as Babydoll conversed at length with a large man who was apparently in charge of things.  
  
When he spoke to her directly, she deliberately essayed to look a little bored in order to hide her interest. It grew more difficult as the conversation progressed, and when he told her how much she would make and how many opportunities there were, she said she would think about it. But when he added something about letting her use an extra dress until she had her own, she balked.  
  
"Sorry, did you say dress?" she inquired, ignoring Babydoll's badly stifled groan.  
  
He laughed as though she had just said something dazzlingly humorous. "Naturally, chickpea. There's no point to dancing the cancan in pants."  
  
"First off, I'm not your chickpea. Second off, I don't wear skirts." Behind her, Babydoll mimed tearing out her hair and sat down to watch the imminent argument.  
  
"Dear," she broke in at one point, causing the red-haired man to chuckle. "Harold does run the place, and as difficult as it is to get on his bad side, it's really not wise to try."  
  
"I'm not even sure I really want to work here," Margot sniffed unconvincingly.  
  
Babydoll muttered something about cheeky barmaids.  
  
After a time, Margot sighed. "Can I at least wear a suit jacket over it?" she asked resignedly.  
  
Harold Zilder laughed. "Possibly."  
  
When Margot entered the Rouge again, it was with a defensive visage and bared ankles.  
  
A week later, Babydoll caught her slipping out of the dressmaker's shop and had the grace not to smirk 


	4. Harlequin

Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine, the speculation is. Also, I'm aware that it was absolutely shameless of me to name this girl what I did, to say nothing of turning her into an emotional wreck. Thanks also to Petal, as I unknowingly stole the stage manager's name from her. He seems like such a Bernard, no?

* * *

"Look out well for the boys."  
  
Columbine was pretty, with sleek taffy-colored hair and smooth skin the English or the bourgeoisie would have likened to cream. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that she would be able to "look out well for the boys" excellently if she utilized her assets properly.  
  
No one was sure when or where they had picked it up. The neighborhood was in a frenzy for a short time, everyone wondering who the sickness would claim next. It was fortunate, in a macabre way, that it had taken only two victims before moving on. The malady had come and gone quickly, that was a blessing, anyway. Her parents hadn't been long in suffering; so much the better both for them and her brothers. The less they had to bear witness to, the better. Their mother had died without a sound during the night; Columbine had had the neighbors over as early as possible to arrange the burial. They had all been present when her father had opened his mouth for the last time and given Columbine his last wish. As everyone knew, last wishes, having been built up by legend and literature, were not to be ignored.  
  
It wasn't as though she had planned on abandoning her brothers, but the option was obvious to all. Plenty of girls in her position had, in the past, simply run off on their own and left their younger siblings to live however they could. Theirs was a small town, provincial and plain, and too many suddenly emancipated youths had seized the opportunity to set out for themselves into the cities.  
  
Columbine was aware that, depending on which neighbors were gossiping, she was seen as being either rational or suicidal. It was no secret that she planned to leave town as well--with her brothers.  
  
She had spoken with them before about how there was better work in the cities, better chances for education. They were nine and twelve, old enough to understand. "You'd like to see Paris, wouldn't you?" she had asked them, sounding so much like their mother she had been torn between crying and grimacing. "You'll be able to be so much more there than you would here. It'll be plenty interesting."  
  
But they had both agreed in the end. Or rather, Auguste had given his sullen shrug of approval, while Frédéric, the younger, had silently nodded. It was still enough.  
  
Most neighbors warned against it. "The city will turn them wild," they claimed. "Better to stay here, let them grow up decent. And don't think you're safe either."  
  
They left anyway, passing into Paris, where there was no need to worry about everyone knowing everything about everyone else. But it was also a disadvantage--and when Columbine reached into her pocket and found it empty, there was no one to turn to.  
  
Whether she knew it or not, she was lucky. After hours of knocking on doors, she found a household that took her in more out of pity than anything. Luckier still, maid work also meant room and board, although making arrangements for her brothers proved more of a challenge. She swore the two boys would be in school and out of the way, and for a time it did work well.  
  
But then Auguste complained it was ridiculous; he could already read and write, and there was nothing the school's lessons could teach that he hadn't already learned at home. Frédéric mutely stood by, finally speaking up to claim that 'Guste was right, and that Mama would never have made them go to school for no reason.  
  
In irritation, Columbine had snapped back the obvious answer: "Well, Mama's not here anymore." Then, catching herself, she lamely amended, "Just go, Mama'd have wanted you to learn more."  
  
In the argument that followed, Auguste had claimed he could work just as well as anyone and that none of them would ever get anywhere on Columbine's wages alone. Frédéric, after agreeing once more, had gone after his brother. When Columbine gave chase, the former had smashed a vase before running out the front door and the latter, in attempting to dive under a table, had upset the entire thing.  
  
Her employer mercifully waited until the next day, when the brothers were in school, to inform Columbine of her fate. When the girl protested, she was pointedly reminded just how fortunate she was not to be charged for the table and vase as well. Columbine left crying, staggering outside until the house was out of sight, and then unthinkingly ducking through the first door she came to.  
  
It turned out to be the door of a stout silver-headed man who had been eating breakfast before the interruption. He blinked at her with a mixture of indignation and perplexity. "Good morning."  
  
She lifted her chin, scrubbed a callused hand across her face. "I need a job," she blurted absurdly. "Please, where do you work?"  
  
Just as absurdly, he answered, eyebrows raised. "I help manage a nightclub a little ways off. Though I don't see why I should assist some hysterical young lady who barges into my house."  
  
"I'll waitress," she said desperately, "or I'll sing, anything."  
  
"Anything, eh?" he murmured in a tone of voice Columbine feared was indicative of some imminent lewd request. "Can you dance?" he asked, and she nearly fell over in relief and confusion.  
  
"A bit," she said slowly, "but I'm a fast learner."  
  
He leaned forward over his plate, suddenly businesslike. "Let's see, then."  
  
The foyer was large enough to be turned into a stage. Columbine went to the center of it. Afterward, she couldn't have said what dance it was she'd done for him, or how well. All she remembered was how she finished with a flourish and stood motionless, not daring to even blink.  
  
He scrutinized her for a minute before demanding, "Your age?"  
  
"Twenty."  
  
"Your name?"  
  
"Columbine."  
  
Unexpectedly, he chuckled. "I'd say you seem more Harlequin than Columbine. What happened, you grew tired of playing the ingénue?"  
  
She smiled politely and hissed the next words between her teeth: "I am not an ingénue."  
  
He was still smiling. "Then you'd be right at home here."  
  
It took all of Columbine's reserve not to break into another dance then and there. "I've got little ones," she warned, composing herself.  
  
"Children?"  
  
"Brothers. Both," she added quickly, "old enough to work."  
  
He mulled that over for an agonizingly long time. "I'll see if there's anything for them."

* * *

"It's like the circus," she said, smoothing Frédéric's hair with one shaking hand while desperately searching for some sign of assent in Auguste's sulky eyes. "Like the circus, only better. And we'd be paid for it. All right?"  
  
Waiting for an answer, she stared at the walls of the tiny apartment she had rented with the last of her wages. When two quiet affirmations reached her ears, she locked herself in the other room and cried, shoving a fist in her mouth to keep them from hearing her sobs.  
  
She had intended to break the news harshly, saying something along the lines of, "You wanted to work, didn't you? Well, here's your chance."  
  
Prosaically, it was her father's words that had prevented her. If finding her brothers jobs in a nightclub wasn't looking out well for them, the least she could do was go about it decently. So once she had cleaned her face, she just as decently took them to said nightclub for a look at their future.  
  
They were as dazzled as she was, and she could barely ignore a motherly urge to cover their eyes. Somehow, she retrained herself. If this was the workplace, adaptation was essential.  
  
Bernard, the stage manager she had burst in on before, had conceded there might be a few opportunities for the boys. One of them involved assisting a leading performer, whom Columbine pointed out to Auguste.  
  
"Do you see her, the redheaded lady on the trapeze?" she asked, although the answer was obvious. "That's who you would work for. She needs a boy like you to help her with her things--not someone who will steal or sneak looks in her dressing room, understand?"  
  
Auguste tore his eyes away from their topic of conversation long enough to nod.  
  
"She's already got one assistant, a boy like you, but the other was thrown out for selling some of her jewelry. Are you interested?"  
  
Her brother looked more astonished than she had seen him for a long time. "Yes!" he exclaimed. Then, eyeing a pair of heavily rouged men dancing nearby: "As long as I don't have to wear anything on my face."  
  
"Oh, it's just a bit around the eyes. It won't make you look foolish at all, and the other boy wears it as well. And you," she continued, addressing Frédéric before Auguste had a chance to reply, "you like clowns, don't you? How would you like to be one? There are lots of them here and with a little one like you they could do all sorts of tricks--throw you in the air so it feels like you're flying, maybe, and then catch you when you come back down. That would be fun, don't you think?"  
  
It was, she told herself, only temporary. Only until they could afford better. And things would be better, soon. She swore it wouldn't be long, hoping her brothers couldn't tell her true thoughts. The other girls teased her for being uptight, but the way she saw it there was no other way to be.  
  
Unanswered questions gnawed at her brain: what she had done to her brothers, whether they would grow up hating her for what she had led them into, whether they would ever be able to pull themselves any higher. Guilt got the better of her every now and then and she would spend hours crying in the dressing room. At worst, she contemplated swallowing poison. She had already bought some, kept it tucked under the vanity. But what would happen then?  
  
She wondered. Every time she saw Frédéric, looking tiny and forlorn behind a gigantic painted-on smile, or Auguste, with his bizarre black-and-white striped shirt and kohl-smeared eyes, she wondered. More and more often she sat apart, doubting very much this was what her father had intended by "look out well for the boys." 


	5. Spanish

Disclaimer: Same as before, etc.

* * *

She had had her own act at the Moulin Rouge for a little while, gyrating her way through foreign dances, aloof as an Iberian queen. Her bearing was both majestic and melancholy, as if she carried with her the remnants of some deep sadness. There was an air of mystery about her, and though she spoke little, she nevertheless managed to garner a great deal of attention without saying a word. Many other dancers envied her that, and made up for it by stabbing her in the back with their own words over and over again. When she did speak, it was quietly and with a thick accent, albeit not quite thick enough for anyone to determine whether it was Spanish or something else entirely.

It was the latter, naturally. Spanish was really from Panama.

Not that one more illusion mattered in that den of illusions. "Nothing at the Moulin Rouge is as it seems," people were fond of saying, and who was she to go against such a formidable declaration? It was in keeping with a theme, almost.

She had claimed, in a rare burst of loquaciousness upon her arrival, to be the niece of a disgraced Spanish grandee. It was an impressive story, whether the others believed it or not. Spanish nobility conjured up images of proud queens and dashing princes, of midnight serenades and rose- bedecked princesses who pursued torrid love affairs with matadors. She doubted mentions of Panamanian nobility would have evoked any such things. Not to mention some of the girls didn't even know Panama existed.

Spanish had created a rich past for herself over the years, so detailed and elaborate she could almost believe it herself. She would have liked for it to have been true. Her real background wasn't so terrible—far from terrible, in fact—but it was, she felt, unremarkable. And Rosanna, as she had been called then, had wanted more than anything to be remarkable.

Needless to say, that had been long ago.

Since childhood, she had lived her life as a drama, making up the narrative as she lived. But there was nothing remarkable about being ruled by Columbia and heckled by the States, nor about Papá's friends urging him to come to France.

_Many years ago, in a tiny country far away, there lived a girl named Rosanna who dreamed of something more._

Her family had been considering sailing to France for some years. They were wealthier than most and Papá had been educated there. Rosanna was twelve when the decision was made. Eduardo was still young, only four, and didn't fully understand it. Aquilina had fought tooth and nail to stay behind. She was seventeen and still unmarried, though Rosanna had seen the looks that passed between her and Rafael from next door. They left in the summer, and Rosanna's hopes for the future were as high as the sun.

_She had a good, kind family who gave her everything her heart desired and kept her from all harm. When the kingdom was besieged by a giant from the north, hundreds of nobles were desperate to escape. Bidding goodbye to, all they held dear, they fled for freedom and boldly set out across the sea, daring fate to do her worst._

France was disappointing. Mentally, Rosanna had unknowingly built it up to be so fantastical that anything would have fallen short of her expectations. Far from being the bubbling cauldron of exhilaration and intrigue she had imagined, it looked harsh and unctuous, and it was filled with strangers gibbering in tongues she couldn't decipher. She cried into her shawl and told Mamá it was because of the smoke.

Her family settled into a decent house, though it seemed to Rosanna far more shabby and cramped than their old home. For a time, she could think of nothing but how much she hated it all. She hated the cold and the unfamiliarity and not being able to understand anyone, even the servants Mamá hired. But she especially hated the letdown. France was supposed to satisfy every dream she had ever had, but it was beginning to seem no more interesting than Panama.

_The maiden's heart leaped when the shimmering coastline appeared on the horizon. And yet, for all the promise that lay rife within this new land, it was not enough for Rosanna's wild spirit. With great determination, she set forth to satisfy it._

It would get better, she thought, hoping with every fiber of her being. It had to get better. Aquilina had other ideas.

They went out walking one afternoon and stopped on a bridge over the Seine to look down at the river. Like a rebellious child, Aquilina slung her legs over the railing and stood balanced on the other side.

Rosanna reached for her sister's arm. "Get down, you're scaring me."

Aquilina pretended to release the rail she held. "I'm fine," she said lightly when Rosanna shrieked. "Don't be an idiot."

Glancing around, Rosanna noticed they were alone; from a distance, it would be impossible to tell Aquilina was standing outside of the bridge rather than on it. "I'm not," she retorted nervously, crossing her arms. "It's a stupid thing to do; even I know that."

Aquilina was looking at her with something that could have been anything from tenderness to pity. "You're not old enough to understand," she said suddenly, as if continuing a previous conversation. "I don't like it here."

"Me either," Rosanna confessed, certain her sister was referring to something more than the bridge. "It's not at all as exciting as I wanted it to be, but I can't say that at home."

The sun was setting, but it was still light enough for her to make out the frown on her sister's face. "'Lina, what's wrong?"

Her sister shook her head. "That isn't it. I'm sure I could be happy here if I didn't know I would be happier somewhere else."

Rosanna was bewildered. "You mean you want to go home?"

"Rafael wanted to marry me." Aquilina's hands were white where they clenched cold metal and the black strands of hair falling loose around her face lent her a disturbingly corybantic appearance. "To _marry_ me. You'll know someday how important that is, knowing someone wants to stay with you for all of life and beyond. And then it was stopped before it could even begin because we came here." Her voice had risen almost to a yell; Rosanna was unsure whether to hold her or run from her. "How can I be happy in this place when I know how much it ruined for me?"

"I...don't know."

"I can't," she said flatly. "And that's something I'd rather not be around to know."

There must have been something of a dramatist in Aquilina as well. She let go of the rail.

_Tranquility reigned until her sister, driven mad by grief and longing, threw herself into the roaring river that ran near their new home. Rosanna was distraught, knowing full well that, had she but kept hold of her sister's hands, had she but cried for assistance, such a tragedy might have been averted._

The narrative that forever ran within Rosanna's head reached a fever pitch. _Step on for your solo, little one._ She knew from the instant Aquilina's eyes dropped in defiance and her body dropped in resignation that her sister was dead, never mind the time it takes a human to drown, never mind the depth of the Seine; she wanted to die, no sense in stopping her. As Rosanna ran home she could almost hear an audience crying for her, a brave girl who had just witnessed a terrible event and was now forced to bring the awful news to the rest of her family. But no one noticed her as she tore through the street like an urchin, breaths ragged, hair flying unattractively out of its plaits.

Mamá's head shot up in alarm as she burst through the door. "Rosanna, _mija_, what happened?" Rosanna carefully caught her breath until the entire family had gathered before her. She let one hand clutch her heart and the other grope weakly at the wall. And, more tragic heroine than grieving girl, she opened her mouth and delivered her lines with a poignant solemnity that wrenched every heart in her audience: "Aquilina is dead."

And that was all. The family clung together in the face of the tragedy until they grew accustomed enough to Aquilina's absence for almost everything to continue as usual. Just a funeral and some crying, and then nothing changed. Rosanna was disappointed. If even a death couldn't make life more interesting, her family must be doing everything all wrong.

_And so it was that Rosanna, innocent and full of hope, came to Paris seeking joy and learned not to find it. Her idealism dashed, she fled in torment, ashamed to burden her family with her pain. She sought life elsewhere, striving mightily to overcome the ills of the past and encounter the adventure she had always dreamed of._

Every now and then she would reach back behind the life of grandees and scandals she had concocted, back further, back before her name became a nationality, back when she had dreamed of a future instead of dreaming a past. And she would try to regret, just to see if she could. She never could.

No doubt there was some sort of symbolism in that. She was empty of anything, a vessel on the stage, twisted to match whatever reality or unreality was in the air.

She dreamed of it very rarely but always vividly. Mamá sewing as the servants made dinner, nodding indulgently while Papá talked on about the stock market. Eduardo laughing as he ran from room to room. Aquilina giggling with Rafael behind the garden wall. And she, Rosanna: with crooked braids, a book on her lap, and a pensive look on her face.

When she woke, it evaporated as easily as if it had never existed at all. And Spanish neatly folded her dreams into the back of her mind, adjusted her mantilla, and went out to dance. Years rolled by, each one more intricate than the next. Bravely, having sacrificed her very birthright, she found a place for herself in a new and beautiful world. And all was well forever after.


	6. Tarot

Disclaimer: See previous chapters.

Warning: Contains implied underage sex. This chapter is slightly long and more than slightly screwed up. I know the ending is awkward, but it will tie in with the next chapter.

* * *

Viridiana Elisabetta Gianina. Ten years old and small for her age. Sent by her father to stay with his brother's family. Distinctly irritated at seeing them discuss her fate in front of her face.

"Silly for a girl that little to have such a long name. Best call her Anna, you think?"

"Make it Annina, so's not to confuse her with Anna Maria."

"I still don't see why we need have her here at all. Gianni runs off to marry, then expects us to take in his brat once things go wrong..."

"Hush, you. His wife's just died; leave him be. We can at least take in the child until things are going right for him. At least she's an only."

"That's how Marietta died, y'know, trying to remedy that."

"Where's the girl going t'stay, eh? We haven't the space."

"Put her in with Mama; they can keep each other company."  
  
Knowing laughter ended the conversation, and Viridiana Elisabetta Gianina—Annina from then on—was swept into a life she had yet to comprehend.

She was the only girl child. There were her aunt and uncle, naturally, and their five sons; the two eldest had married and the youngest was a good eight years her senior. At first she registered no names save that of one of the servants, who was of course called Anna Maria.

It was the other servant who picked up her scraped suitcase and introduced her to the quilt-swathed creature of scales and sandpaper who was presumably her grandmother. "Your Nonna Viridiana," the maid said unceremoniously. "She sleeps, mostly, so you'll have to be quiet."

Nonna Viridiana did more than sleep. In time, she became the family member the girl felt the most at ease with. When the old woman produced an intricate pack of cards one day and asked if she wanted lessons, Annina dubiously agreed. She had no idea what Nonna Viridiana meant by lessons, but she acquiesced partially to humor the old woman and partially because they filled her spare time.

"This one means hope, but also change and despair; this one stands for sadness and forthrightness; this one for passion..." And so on for what seemed like hundreds of cards. It was nothing if not time-consuming; Nonna Viridiana could spend hours tangentially discussing the facets of a single card. Annina was frustrated at first; they all seemed to contradict each other. In a way, it was the challenge of it that caused the lessons to become more than the diversion Annina had anticipated.

Time passed swiftly; days, weeks, months of Annina's tiny doll-like hands turning the cards, flinging them down; of Nonna Viridiana, whose own withered hands were almost as small, and whose wavering eyes were those of a madwoman, reproaching and reminding and haphazardly teaching the girl French. "You'll travel," she announced once, "so you might as well know another tongue, and this is all I have to teach." It was half-mad French she learned, as Nonna Viridiana's mind was subject to lapses of its own and the old woman had never actually picked up more of the language than books and French peddlers had to offer.

"This isn't a good place for you," she said another time, shooting out a skeletal arm to grasp her granddaughter's wrist. "There's a long time coming before you find one that is good; you'll be moved about, but not of your own accord. You'll travel soon, did you know?" Her voice grew thick and aimless here, as it sometimes did, and Annina didn't bother replying that yes, she knew. In spite of her grandmother's state, it never occurred to her that the woman's expertise with the cards might be questionable.

So she slept in Nonna Viridiana's room, learned to answer when they called her Annina, and gradually felt somewhat a part of the household.

But Nonna Viridiana could be infuriating, once remarking, as her granddaughter came in with her supper, that Annina never seemed to mind fetching and carrying for her.

"Everyone else has other things to do and it's no trouble for me," Annina answered, certain the old woman would approve of the pious reply. But Nonna Viridiana shook her head with a brittle laugh. "No, it's because you're the most expendable," she said glibly. "It would matter the least if you were taken ill—better you than part of the real family."

"I am part of the real family," Annina retorted, miffed, "and they wouldn't want me to die."

"Of course they wouldn't wish it on you, but there's no doubt you're the one they'd mind losing the least. They take you in and feed you and treat you well, but there will always be a barrier. Your father made them angry and some of that anger has seeped into what they feel towards you."

"Then I guess you're not a part of it either. They sit around and wait for you to die, not even brave enough to visit you all that often. I bring you your food, I keep you company so they don't have to."

"I'm terribly old, sick in the mind, just ask anyone. I won't be long in going. Take the cards and see for yourself."

Annina scowled, wondering why she had brought the old bat any supper at all. "If you're so smart, I don't have any reason to doubt you."

And as always, her grandmother was right. She was dead before the week was out. Annina clutched the cards as the rest of her relatives filed into the tiny room.

When it came time for the funeral, they had a letter from Annina's father informing them he would not be home for it. She heard angry voices through the walls, before her uncle stormed outside, snarling, "He'll find out what it's like to have your family turn on you," with a vehemence that sent a strange apprehension shooting through Annina like lightning.

It was cousin Calvino who did it. She trusted him the most and thought nothing of it when he offered to take her on a trip. "You're twelve now, aren't you?" he teased, tossing her in the air like a rag doll. "Ready for anything, isn't that right? Even France?"

She had laughed and nodded, thinking only of France and the chance to try out the language in its native land, hardly hearing him as he declared, "Good. Then you're coming with me into Grenoble, for I need to make a trade."

* * *

She had been stupid to believe him, and she rebuked herself for it often. In corners, beds, doorways; alone, fingers or fists stuffed in her ears or mouth; wanting to disappear or at least lose her mind, leaving nothing behind save a gutted girl who would have no such memories to bear. Expendable, as Nonna Viridiana had said, and so, so stupid... This was Grenoble, then. She had caught only a glance of it before going with Calvino to eat supper and whatever else had been in it. She woke up in the shadows and remained wrapped in the same dress for days afterward. They must have pawned the contents of her suitcase after the "trade" was finalized. It was torn and filthy in no time by her struggles, but the cards, at least, were still in one pocket. In that shadowy nowhere, surrounded by figures who seemed extensions of the shadows themselves, she turned them to stay sane, seeking comfort in the familiar skulls and stars.  
  
She wasn't the youngest one there. Some of the smallest still came back from their engagements crying.

That was what they were called, engagements. You, I want at least three more engagements this week or no meals. You, you're wanted for an engagement at half past one. You, haven't you had any engagements yet tonight?

There were sometimes those who preferred tears. It made them feel more powerful or some such thing, Annina guessed, something she could almost find funny at times. It didn't take much power to make a child cry. The first time, the realization of her predicament hadn't fully registered and she spent the night biting through her lips and sobbing into her fist when if was over. And so on, until she became so accustomed she stopped crying at all. It was the only thing that truly scared her, that she had gotten used to this.

Outside of the engagements she sometimes wrote to occupy herself, scribbling down fading memories and snatches of poetry in her native Italian or garbled French. But mostly it was the cards that made for good entertainment. She read for the others and scarcely glanced at the cards, either lying through her teeth and haltingly telling of wonderful things to come, or turning it into a joke and predicting horrible things to befall their keepers or clients.

Then it was back on the job with the rising of the moon. The older ones painted the faces of the young, then did their own and stepped out to work, androgynous as a procession of dolls in their ribbons and curls. A stream of pretty faces with their networks of hairline cracks cunningly concealed with powder. The progeny of a master craftsman. The fanciful metaphors stretched on and on. Some of them had been in the trade a long time; there was one hunchbacked girl with a face like a martyr, even without makeup—she no longer needed it by this point, really—who was extremely popular. Annina went out with the rest of them, hair swept back from her peaked face, lips reddened, looking like a carnival mask. Tiny but tough, the keeper claimed; she can take anything. True enough; there were ten-year-olds larger than she was, and her only tears were the ones she inked on when she fancied playing a pierrette for the night.

Occasionally she would be kept out longer than usual and given a good meal as coins changed hands. Then it was off for a long carriage ride, more coins would change hands, and she would find herself in the same situation but in a different location. It would stay that way for a while, the duties the same as before. Sometimes she never knew the name of the city; all of those are the same as well, when one only sees the underside. And after being sold and traded through a string of similar boxlike operations, she gave up keeping track altogether. Conditions were better in some, worse in others. One place lacked even beds; the children curled together on the floor like half-grown rodents. She remembered that one because it was there that she first caught the chills. They kept her in bed—or rather, on the floor—for a good three weeks, shivering ceaselessly and eating rarely. No doctor, naturally. By the time it was over, she was too emaciated for anyone to take an interest in. At fourteen, she was also old, even if she didn't look it.

Annina was done away with without ceremony. When she came to one morning she was convulsing on the street instead of the floor, left with nothing to do but seek out a floor of her own. After two years, she even had a bed to go with it.

That was how she met Elénore. The girl, assuming Annina's flat was unused (which was understandable, given how bare it was) had decided to spend the night there. Annina had the chills again, worse than usual after the long day and the cold, and nearly fainted when she saw the form in her bed. Once it was established that Elénore had known no better and that Annina's nosebleed would stop as a matter of course, the two of them reasoned they might as well share the room as it was.

They got along well enough to develop a friendship, although Elénore baffled her roommate at times. She was a wispy dreamer a few years older than Annina and often reminded the latter of tragic heroines in the cheap romances sold by street venders. She had been married repeatedly and spoke often of her hope to marry again, something Annina could never comprehend.

"Love is all there is to live for," Elénore would profess with an ardor any bohemian would envy, prompting a grimace from Annina. "You mean to say you've never thought of marrying?"

"Not really."

It wasn't entirely true. She had memories of such things, of Nonna Viridiana nodding at her, saying, "Here, do the cross spread—no, the wedding spread, and try to get it right this time. What sort of man will you marry, Annina?"

As always, the answer was the same. "I won't."

Marriage had never been one of Annina's concerns. As a girl, she had fantasized every now and then about marrying a wealthy baron and living in luxury, but she was rational enough to see the silliness of it. The cards' reply to that particular question never bothered her, but Nonna Viridiana seemed disconcerted by it. Now it appeared to make perfect sense.

No matter how magnificent Elénore professed love to be, Annina could never help but respond to the declarations with more than a sigh and a shake of her head. Love seemed to her more an annoyance than anything else. There was trouble enough surviving on one's own; why add another person into the equation and double the difficulty? Annina also noticed that for someone so intent on attaining and glorifying love, Elénore was subject to impressively intense bouts of depression. Mentally, she pegged her flatmate as something of a failed idealist.

And then she found out why: Elénore fell in love at the drop of a hat. Literally. Annina had once seen her go out of her way to catch a gentleman's hat that had blown off, had seen the rapture shining in the girl's eyes when the fellow thanked her and kissed her hand.

In a way, it was pathetic. Elénore would give herself to anyone, always with the hope that she would have her own needs met in return. And that itself was difficult enough. Annina overheard many heartfelt arguments between the other girl and the men she brought home—always consisting of tearful exclamations along the lines of, "I don't want your pity, I want you to say you love me,"—and each time reasserted her own vow never to succumb to such desperation herself.

Yet Elénore never stopped rhapsodizing about how love was all there was to live for. Annina wasn't so cruel as to point out that Elénore didn't seem to have much to live for if that was the case, but she did carefully mention that such susceptibility was hardly an auspicious trait for a woman of their profession. There was something pathetic about a whore falling for her clients, yet that was exactly what happened. Day in, day out, Elénore came home with her makeup smudged and her eyes swollen.

Inevitably, once Elénore found out about the cards, she requested readings. Every time, Annina would say she didn't need a card to tell what was in Elénore's future

"There is a man," she said without bothering to deal. "You worship him. You expect to be married soon, but the one you hope to marry is indifferent, though he never says so. He either takes you for granted or doesn't care. You're always the one to say you love him and then you unfailingly have an absurd little argument because he won't say it back unless you drag it out of him."

Peering with ice-blue incredulity at Annina through a fall of pale coppery hair, Elénore blinked. "You're a cynic, did you know that? But really, have you _ever_ been in love?"

Annina gave her a grimace and a shuddery shrug. "I'd like to keep my head, thanks, not lose it to someone."

"That's losing your heart, you mean," Elénore corrected.

"No," Annina said seriously, "it's your head."


	7. Garden Girl

Disclaimer: It's all mine, of course.

Fmeh. Indeed.

Notes/Warnings: Meet Elénore, a very disturbed girl who doesn't seem to know it. This chapter is also long and screwed up. I'm noticing a theme here, I think. I'm also not completely happy with the end, but felt I'd dragged things out long enough. One day I will learn to be succinct, really. Contains murder and self-inflicted violence. Non-explicit.

* * *

The one who started it all was cad, though Elénore never saw him as such. She ran away to marry him when she was fifteen, and he was a prince in her eyes. His name was Valentine, appropriately enough, and it was almost too easy for her romantic soul to conjure up a life of lacy hearts and bliss lived out side by side. She looked like an angel on a valentine herself, until she wore herself ragged for his benefit. From there, it became something of a habit.

It was the boy that made everything fall apart. At least, she thought it was a boy; she could never think of it as anything more than a squalling bundle of blood. But Valentine had been distant lately. She worried he might have taken wandering because of the child's presence, though that was ridiculous; he was her husband. But as far as she could tell it was true and even the meekest individual needs someone to cast the blame on sometimes. The boy, if it was a boy, ended up in the river, and she had gone home pleased with herself.

As she waited for him to return, she sat at her desk filling sheets of perfumed paper with rapturous calligraphy, drafting absurd vignettes that matched her thoughts. _He'll love me again now that I've gotten rid of it. _

The euphoria lasted all of two hours before several realizations came crashing down simultaneously. One was the laughing in the foyer that announced Valentine had come home. Another was that he seemed to have no idea she was about. Not even he had the nerve to come home to his wife with a bottle in his hand and a rouged, feathered creature on his arm.

Another was that she had killed her own child, a fact sent her spinning into the role of the bereaved mother, never mind she had hardly been a mother at all and that she preferred the bereavement. The position called for action nonetheless.

Normally she made an effort to avoid acting on her impulses, as they tended to take on lives of their own, but this time she yielded to it. It didn't matter how badly it ended; surely Valentine would take no notice by this point. Floating distantly through the hall, she filled a basin and held her head underneath.

It was as therapeutic as ever. At least underwater her tears dissipated instantly and she was deaf to the laughter floating up the stairs. Only a minute or so, nothing more, she promised herself, and then things whirled out of her control. Life really was more comfortable when lived out at the bottom of a basin. Everything muted and melted together, not mattering a whit, not lasting long enough to cause any trouble. It was a good place to stay.

The endeavor was going wonderfully until a voice too sharp to be muffled demanded, "What the hell are you doing?" and a strong hand yanked her backwards.

She smiled a watery smile as her eyes refocused. "It's all right, you can get rid of her," gesturing to the feathery girl at his elbow. "It's gone and now we're all right again, aren't we?"

His flushed face seemed to pale a few shades. "What's gone?"

She coughed. "Darling, I don't think I can stand on my own. Help me up?"

He ignored her. "Damn it, what did you do?"

"What I've always done. I did what I thought would make you happy."

"So you've hidden him, then? The way you shut your spaniel in the closet when you thought I was too annoyed by it to spend time with you?"

"You went out more often after it was around." She was wringing her hands without realizing it. "I didn't want you to hate me."

He laughed mirthlessly. "I went out more often because my wife is out of her head."

The tears were back, dripping quietly down her face. "You don't know what I mean. I've done everything for you. Isn't that what a good wife does?"

With a sudden jerk, he pulled her to her feet. When he spoke again, it was low and deliberate. "I can't be kept happy by a madwoman. I thought having something to care for would settle you somehow, keep off the melancholia. But a child isn't like a dog. There can't be any more of this. Where have you hidden him?"

Elénore daintily covered her eyes.

* * *

Valentine, white as a sheet, had been a perfect gentleman about it, throwing her belongings into suitcases, sending for a carriage, and, when it arrived, walking her to the door and grimly telling her to go.

"I love you," she had murmured, waiting for him to at least offer her a handkerchief. But he had already disappeared through the doorway. The feathered girl lingered long enough to drape a boa around Elénore's neck and mockingly wish her good luck.

That was her best relationship to date.

She married twice after him; neither went well. One was young and impetuous and left her with nothing but an annulment once he became bored. She was mad, he claimed, and impossible to live with. In turn, she left him with a daughter and went on her way. The other was old enough to be her father and beat her when his workdays went badly. She took it in stride, operating under the belief that he would love her more if she ceded to his will. In the end, he tired of her as well.

At some point soon thereafter it occurred to her that she was destitute and alone with virtually no means of surviving.

She was idle at first, spending time in her room, dreaming and sewing and nibbling bread, if she had any, and wondering. She excelled at that. Wondering how long it would be before the rent was due, wondering what would become of her then, wondering what had become of Valentine and the others, wondering if there was anything left in the world for her. She felt hollow sometimes, half-dead. In order to keep the impulses at bay, she managed to convince herself that, if she kept on long enough, she would find true love of the storybook variety. And that in itself was worth holding on for. Till then, all she could do was assure herself she still lived. She knew several methods.

One of her favorites manifested when she sewed, leaving its signature in constellations of pinpricks on her fingers and the backs of her hands. They could pass for freckles, sometimes, or a peculiar rash. In actuality, she did it to make herself feel real. Still alive, still real enough to bleed. It was refreshingly simple, as she embroidered, to leave a series of jabs across her hands.

She worked when she could, but was too absentminded to keep any job for very long. Translating brought her better luck; it was the sort of work she could do on her own time. Her mother had been Polish and Elénore had lived there herself as a child, but no matter how well she knew the language there still remained very few publishers who wanted Polish translations. She knew some Latin as well, but scarcely enough to manage even the simplest tasks.

Naturally, she was evicted. Too tired to think straight, she left her tenement and wandered into another with the intention of sleeping in the hallway where no one was likely to notice her. When she came across what appeared to be an unoccupied room, she sought refuge there instead and collapsed on the bed without thinking twice.

The room, if the shriek that awoke her a few hours later was any indication of things, was not unoccupied. Elénore jumped out of bed and found herself face to face with a deathly pale girl who was shaking fervently and bleeding from the nose.

"Oh God, here, I'm sorry; I didn't know this was your room," she cried, producing a handkerchief. "Is it bad?"

The stranger took it and sank into a chair. "It'll stop; happens a lot."

Elénore stood silently for a few minutes, not sure whether to stay or go. "I'm Elénore," she ventured.

The smaller girl tentatively lifted the handkerchief. "Viridiana Elisabetta Gianina."

Elénore blinked.

"Call me Annina," she amended in a long-suffering tone of voice. "And you can stay, if you don't snore and you pay part of the rent."

The comment was so offhand Elénore almost didn't understand it. The sun was rising and there was enough light to make out the other girl's features—porcelain-faced, with clear green eyes, she was pretty in pitiful sort of way, as if she had never had a chance to grow. She spoke with a lilting accent that did nothing to repudiate her childlike appearance; to Elénore, she looked about twelve years old.

"I can do that, thank you," she finally replied, bewildered. "But you're young, aren't you, to be on your own?"

"Sixteen," Annina answered, narrowing her eyes at Elénore's disbelieving gaze. "And if it's that much of a problem for you, you're welcome to find another place to go."

It wasn't. The arrangement worked out nicely. Annina, who spent her days telling fortunes in the street and her nights doing things she discreetly left unmentioned, sometimes had Elénore pick up Italian manuscripts in addition to her usual Latin and Polish, and would then translate those herself for a little extra money to put towards a pair of gloves or bottle of wine. They joked about becoming famous together, traveling the world as interpreters, with Annina doing her card readings on the side and Elénore marrying her way into some branch of foreign nobility. Annina thought the last bit was silly, but then, as she often made clear, she didn't believe in love.

Elénore didn't pretend to understand that sort of logic, but kept to her translations. It was entirely an accident when she discovered an occupation that at which she fared far better.

It happened after Annina provided her with a particularly dreary reading and Elénore, exasperated, demanded, "Have you _ever_ been in love?"

The girl looked at her as if she were insane. "I'd like to keep my head, thanks, not lose it to someone."

"That's losing your heart, you mean."

"No," her flatmate insisted, "it's your head."

"How have you gotten this far if you're so afraid of losing something to a man? You're so cold towards them it's amazing they don't mistake you for a statue and leave you alone entirely."

She had intended it to be a joke, but Annina answered her solemnly. "I never said I was afraid of anything. And you probably wouldn't know it, but not all men are heroes. Some of them would kill to bed a statue. They think it a challenge and they'll keep coming back to try and get more of a reaction. I know very well I won't fall in love and I'm perfectly fine with that."

"But why? You can't know such a thing for certain."

"When you've had this kind of life for long enough, you know what traps to avoid," she said ambiguously.

"It happens to me all the time," Elénore said mildly.

Annina simply shrugged. "You're very different from me. Maybe that's a good thing, but I prefer my way." They sat in silence for a few minutes, Annina contemplatively sipping a glass of wine while Elénore did embroidery and paused once in a while to prick at her fingertips with the needle. She didn't even realize the melancholia was on her until Annina ordered her to stop sighing and go out for a walk or something for God's sake.

She wandered into a nightclub's garden by chance because the flowers caught her eye, idly plucking a few and weaving them into garlands like a tawdry Ophelia. The patrons seemed to notice; she had several offers without even trying and they paid so well it never occurred to her to decline. Night after night she returned, eventually taking to it exclusively. Annina must have known, though she never said a word. Elénore was staying out later and later, always coming back with flowers wilted around her shoulders and tear- streaked makeup on her face.

The patrons came to know her well, the aloof, wistful-eyed girl who swathed herself in flowers and never left a customer without first asking, "Do you love me?"

_Where's the garden girl? Hey, garden girl!_

She became a dancer almost by default when the hall's owner found out how successful she was. She practically dragged Annina in one night to try and gain employment for her as well. "You won't believe how good the money is," she whispered. "We can be dancers together before we get rich as interpreters."

Annina snorted. "Yes, might as well save up."

The Italian girl held up well under the owner's questioning. "I've been doing this sort of thing since I was barely twelve," she said, avoiding Elénore's eyes. "I know how it works and I won't run off."

The owner seemed to like her, going so far as to say she'd be a natural and it was a shame the name Gypsy was taken (a remark which drew a resentful glare from a hook-nosed dancer with thick red hair).

"She can be something else," Elénore said quickly. "She knows tarot," she began, and he interrupted her with a laugh.

"Tarot, then."

And Annina was in. By rights, Elénore told herself, she should have wanted for nothing. The dance was exhilarating, the company was diverse, and there was never a dull moment. It should have been enough to keep her spirits up. But client after client went streaming by and she was unable to keep from losing herself to each one, no matter how much she was chided for it. Fighting back the inevitable became impossible, regardless of how often she pricked her fingers.

It all went to hell when she tried to hang herself in the dressing room. She was suspended from one of the ceiling beams, watching the world blur into a bruise, and then the door opened.

There was, of course, a chorus of shrieks—that would be Antoinette, Gypsy, and Polka Dot, she thought, vaguely recognizing a few—and she was lucid enough to discern that Annina's distinctive yelp wasn't among them. It was a relief, even to her fading senses. Annina was resilient, but she didn't want the girl to see her die.

A new voice cut through the screaming. "Oh, for God's _sake_,"—and _that _would be Travesty— "Domi, help me out here."

And then the pressure on her throat eased and the cross-dresser and the sadist were ruining everything as Antoinette jumped around like a lunatic, screeching, "Cut her down, cut her down!" and Gypsy pulled out a stiletto and snapped, "I'm trying, I'm trying!" and Polka Dot said something about fetching Tarot.

Elénore didn't have the breath to protest that last remark, and when she had finally gasped herself into something approximating regularity Travesty slapped her face in disgust and made her lose it all over again. "What a stupid thing to do. Jesus, d'you have any idea how fucking—"

"Damn it, leave her alone!" The order was spoken by a high-pitched voice that proceeded to begin swearing in Italian. So they had brought Annina.

Travesty muttered something that sounded like, "Fucking stupid thing to do," before Annina shoved her out of the way.

"You," she said with strained levity, "are going to cost us half our damned translation team before it gets off the ground. Not to mention if you off yourself before you find true love, you're bound to miss it."

Elénore tried to harrumph, but it came out a wheeze. "You don't even think it exists. Don't humor me."

Annina was babbling. "Well, you do. And if it does, don't you want to be around to prove me wrong? Look, I'll do a reading for you. A real one. They don't really say all that much, but they tell the good and the bad. So please get the hell off the floor. God, this makes your needlework look healthy. But keep at it, if that's what it takes, just no more of this..."

It was comfortable on the floor, comfortable as it had been on the ceiling beam, in the basin. Hovering on the edge of a world where nothing was so complicated, not like this one where there was nothing to stay for. No storybooks, no love that outlasted the night, nothing but squabbling courtesans and Annina's entreaties in her ears.

She got up anyway.


	8. Schoolgirl

Notes: My apologies; this chapter took longer to get posted than I'd hoped. Summer stock work has been monopolizing my time. This one is rather long, again. I indulged myself a bit; Schoolgirl is one of my favorites, so I let her have as much of her say as she wanted. Apologies also if this seems too coincidental and cliché.

* * *

A dancehall was probably the last place on earth she thought she would ever find herself working in. She was small and nimble, it was true, but more interested in running through the streets than dancing the same steps night after night. The whores by the river sometimes put makeup on her when she visited them, but it only made her look like a raccoon, or at best a fox. In all honesty, she was hardly a human at all, she resembled so many animals—a crow, a weasel, a stray cat, and so on. There wasn't much room left for humanity.

It was what came of growing up on a steady diet of Parisian crime. From the start, it was all she had known, and she liked to boast that she had been thrown down to earth for picking the pearls off heaven's gates. She was all pasty skin and scabby knees, the epitome of a street rat, with a pointed face and rust-red hair she either messily braided or crammed under a cap. She called herself Lynette, because she liked the sound of it. By the time she was eight, the police knew her as _la pie_--the magpie--for her prowess at acquiring small, precious items.

Given that, the idea of her dancing for a living was highly improbable. There were plenty of young ne'er-do-wells who performed, singing on street corners for a few coins, but Lynette had found a more exciting niche for herself in the toughest, scruffiest groups of urchins. Both males and females called themselves errand boys and they formed the top tier of the juvenile underground. There were dozens of street gangs made up of other urchins, but it was the errand boys who oversaw them. They themselves answered to no one but the gangs they served-and those, as they were fond of bragging, were _real _gangs.

Lynette had started off independently, picking pockets and locks, and happened to be more decent at it than those twice her age. She was caught repeatedly, but managed to either escape or talk her way out of trouble every time. It was around then that the police gave her a nickname. It was what made her famous-not many errand boys ever received any names other than those they created for themselves, and being a noted criminal by age eight was nothing to disdain. Within days she was being requested to help out with other jobs—getting into small places, delivering messages, providing diversions. For the most part, she could go about freely without looking suspicious; more so than the majority of the errand boys, who were older than she was.

It was a successful bargain. Lynette was skilled but not particularly strong, and with her new connections no one would dare touch her. As she grew, her unsystematic jobs expanded to become a steady stream of jailbreaks, robberies, and transfers. Unlike most of her compatriots, she saw the benefits of negotiating with the street performers. If she promised to protect them from other errand boys, they would do anything to help her. So much the better for heightening her success rate.

* * *

It was raining hard, a fact Lynette had been cursing since dawn. Rain meant it would be more difficult than usual make deliveries, especially the unwieldy packages that were troublesome enough to move when the weather was fair. It also meant that nearly all of her usual helpers had packed up early and disappeared into the city for the night. Even her closest associate, a boy who played a battered flute a few blocks over and was always in the same spot without fail, was nowhere to be found. Lynette had spent the last hour dashing through maze after maze of muddy alleyways, only to meet with identical discouragements. She had resolved to try one more area before resigning herself to fetching another errand boy instead, even though it would mean parting with a higher percentage of the venture's yields.

The final stop, near the opium dens, did not disappoint her. Lynette exhaled loudly when she noticed a slight form dancing for an oblivious audience consisting of passerby who rushed through the rain without even glancing at her. It was easy to recognize it as Angeline, whose mouth was fouler than most errand boys' and who, for a small share of the profits, would distract customers so Lynette could slip things in and out of the dens. Squinting through the raindrops, Lynette could tell she was in the midst of the acrobatics that marked the end of her dance.

"Hey!"

The other girl tucked a lock of sodden black hair back into the ribbons that lent to her deceptively sweet appearance. "Hey."

Lynette darted across the street. "Lucky today at all?"

"Awful." The dark girl's face dropped into its usual expression of displeasure. "No one gives a damn about anything but staying dry. I stayed there all fucking day looking as innocent as God's own mother an' I still didn't even make as much as that sack-of-shit-slut on the other corner."

"Good." Lynette jerked her head at the den. "I've got some things stuffed under the floorboards in the back room. I've gotta get 'em to the river by tonight, but it's too much for me to carry myself, so I need you t'come with me."

Sneaking into the den was an effortless task, but the trip to the waterside, even with two pairs of scrawny arms dragging the goods instead of one, was slow going. Lynette vented her frustrations by constantly nagging Angeline to be faster or quieter, which annoyed Angeline into snapping, "Magpie, either fuck off or do it yourself."

Somehow, they managed to make it to the river, where Lynette was given her pay. She turned to give a few coins to Angeline, but the other girl was peering through the sheets of rain towards the street. "There's people there watching," she muttered.

The redhead sighed impatiently. "God's sake, Lini, quit joking. Here."

The moon emerged from behind a cloud long enough to illuminate the indignation in Angeline's eyes and the pistols winking in too many sets of hands that seemed to sprout directly out of the night. For a split second, there was dead silence. Then Angeline vehemently began, "I'm not—!" and the moon disappeared, leaving everything pitch black once again save the eerie glimmering of the water.

She had witnessed shootings before, plenty of times, but never been caught in them. Absurdly, the first thought that crossed her mind was that now she had a new story to tell her friends. Then all thoughts dissolved, melted into oblivion by the shouts and shots that truncated the other girl's sentence and seemed louder than anything Lynette had ever heard in her life. Tearing through the air, filling it with riotous racket so completely the cacophony was almost tangible, or at least tangible enough to keep her rooted to the spot instead of sprinting away like one of the many animals she was. For a few moments, it was a hart that seized control; standing still and uncomprehending in the chaos, eyes large and shining like bullets in the nothingness of the night. When a real bullet tore past her, perilously close, she jumped back into herself, rabbitlike, and bolted. She had scarcely begun when someone slammed into her and knocked her to the ground, gashing her forehead and sending another inconsequential thought flashing through her head.

_God, I hope that didn't chip a tooth._

There was blood and rainwater running into her eyes, not that there was anything to see, and a gritty-metallic flavor in her mouth that marked where her jaw had clamped down on her lip. In regaining her feet, she heard a sound like the yowl of a dying cat and didn't realize until she felt the pain in her arm that it was coming from her.

She was never sure if the bullet came from the police or from her own gang; it was too dark to tell. Of course it was dark, something in the back of her mind reminded her; she'd seen to the streetlights herself. Somewhere close by, a child was sobbing and calling for its mother. Angeline, Lynette concluded hazily, would never do such a thing, so this must be her as well. A surprisingly grounded composed vestige of thought sensibly reminded Lynette that she had no mother, and the girl dissolved into sobs alone. Behind her, amongst the rumbling roars and screeches, she could hear Angeline cursing as fluently as the smugglers themselves, the oaths growing louder and louder as the dark-haired girl somehow located her and practically dragged her out of the fray and under a bridge.

She lost track of Angeline shortly after that night; and the battle scar she had gained from it made her more famous than ever.

Nothing so hazardous happened again until years later. She was too old by then to be considered an errand boy and had instead become mistress to one of the gang leaders. For a time, work was prosperous and they lived in a state approaching decency. But the brutality of street life never truly leaves a person, and it caught up to both of them when one of the underlings, having received what he saw as less than his just desserts of a recent venture, went to the police.

Lynette was sleeping when her lover threw open the door and released a half- enraged half-desperate string of curses and requests, all the while fumbling through their belongings and hurling handfuls of them into a hastily opened suitcase.

"Here!" He flung something at her and tore open a drawer so violently it fell from the bureau. "Put this on, quick."

It was a shredded school uniform. Barely awake enough to register what was happening, she wrinkled her nose and laughed. "I think I'm a little old t'pull this off."

"It don't matter, just so long's you don't look like yourself. At this point, we've got nothin' t'lose. C'mon!" Grasping the suitcase in one hand and her wrist in the other, he hurried them out the door the instant she had pulled it over her head.

The inevitable confrontation occurred almost immediately. The slighted smuggler had evidently managed to garner a handful of associates who shared his opinions, and the lot of them enthusiastically set to work at detaining their rivals. The suitcase was abandoned in favor of a pistol, but it was two against many. One, really; in the confusion of their brisk escape, Lynette had left unarmed. It was no bullet that marked her this time—that honor was reserved for her paramour—but a blade, spearing through the flimsy material of her uniform and into the prominent ribs beneath.

Ever a fighter, she doubled over in silent white-hot agony for only a second before taking flight. Pounding through the streets in her unlaced boots (they tripped her and she kicked them off at the mouth of another alley, hoping to mislead her pursuers), with one hand clasped against her abdomen, she ran until lack of blood and breath left her dazed and dizzy. In trying to run while looking over her shoulder, she practically fell, but it was worth it when the glance revealed the street behind her was empty. With her free hand, Lynette clawed at the first doorknob she came to and stumbled inside.

It was a back door to one of the bordellos, a fact made clear by the silk- and-silver-bedecked women who shrieked and leaped backwards upon her sudden entrance. A safe enough place, Lynette mentally decided, not that she would be able to go far if it wasn't. "They're gonna kill me," she muttered, and collapsed.

When she came to days later, it was in an unfamiliar bed and a murky figure, also unfamiliar, was sitting beside her. Lynette, groggy and bewildered, promptly swung her fist at it. The blow fell short as pain ripped through her ribs; she dropped back against her pillow with a yelp.

"Careful," a male voice warned. "You'll heal slower if you open it again." Then it muttered, apparently to itself, "Better go and tell Harold the schoolgirl's awake."

"I'm not one," Lynette said petulantly.

He chuckled and she bristled. "You looked like one when you came in here."

"Well, I'm not. And who're you?" she demanded, as imperiously as she was able. "Who's Harold? Where's this place at and how long've I been here?"

"You've been four days at the Moulin Rouge," the voice intoned, amused. "Harold Zidler owns it, but I'm the one who's been keeping watch over you since you fell through the door."

"That was decent of you," she admitted, only half mocking. "And you're...?"

He rose, and there was just enough light for her to make out a grizzled, bespectacled face that looked like an amiable trout. "I'm the Doctor."

"I figured that much," she began, but he had already walked out the door.

When he returned, it was with a jovial ringmaster of a man whom she supposed was Harold. A few of the dancers curiously trailed behind them. In spite of her abrasive manner, Harold seemed taken with her, going so far as to suggest she stay and work for him.

Shaking her head, Lynette declined as politely as she knew how. "Listen, thanks for keeping me and all, but this is a dancehall and I don't dance. There might be nothing for me anywhere else, but there's nothing here either and I've got a better chance of pulling myself up out there than I do if I stay."

"The hell you do." The words came from a sharp-faced dancer with black hair and pale blue eyes.

Lynette bared her teeth, red hair falling foxlike around her face. "What the fuck d'you know? I've been out there all my life. I'm the magpie; ever hear of me?"

"Oh, are you? Got the battle scar from the river and everything? While I'm at it, d'you have my apron?"

The redhead froze.

The dancer's red mouth parted in a grin. "C'mon, I was there the night you got it. Or d'you errand boys not remember the waysides like me?"

Lynette blinked, recalled the night, years ago. Bleeding from one arm, biting her own fingers to keep from screaming as a girl with an intent face tied her apron around the wound; the same girl spitting on her forehead and dabbing at the blood, raking Lynette's hair back with a makeshift comb consisting of one spidery hand, carefully redoing the loosened braid. "_Lini_?

"Not quite, but close enough." The dark girl left, laughing, and Lynette wildly wondered if she was dreaming.

She stayed after all, agreeing to learn their dances once she was well enough and. They had another uniform made for her, as a joke, and she laughed and wore it as Angeline...Lini...Nini taught them to her. It was strange being reunited with her, stranger still (and slightly embarrassing) to be working under her—no longer ragged ribbons and opium smoke, the former street performer had risen farther than either of them had thought possible. Lynette learned quickly, to the satisfaction of both herself and Zidler, who laughed and said knowingly that he had known she had spunk.

But through it all, a question nagged at her, had been nagging at her ever since her recovery. She finally asked it after one of their lessons. "Why'd you want me to stay?"

Nini gave her a sharp smile. "Misery loves company."

All told, however, it was less miserable than she expected. There was, as always, a wildness about her, but she was more graceful than anyone, herself included, had anticipated. But even then it remained apparent that no amount of cosmetics could make her pretty. The too-wide smile, the snapping gray eyes that saw everything, the long red braids pinned into loops; she was a matchstick mannequin held together with makeup and gall, none too pretty, but open and entertaining enough to gain popularity. The name they gave her was also surprisingly appropriate, considering she had never set foot in a school. Cackling like a crow, she would narrow her eyes conspiringly and gossip like a girl, scrawny arms tracing the air, legs thrashing under the short pleated skirt. It fit her perfectly.

They sent someone after her only once, when they uncovered her whereabouts. He entered through the same door she had staggered through not so long ago and came towards her as she was getting ready for a show. "Not a word," he hissed, and Lynette sniffed back a snicker and kicked him in the face.

He tried again after she had camouflaged herself on the kaleidoscopic dance floor. She was sitting off to the side during Babydoll's act when she caught sight of him. In a moment of foolishness, Lynette sprang up, executed a graceful little twirl, and spat on him before ducking back behind the curtains. She got a pummeling for that and Babydoll's performance was abruptly cut short. Chocolat, who had the uncanny ability to be everywhere at once without anyone noticing, was the one who put a stop to the beating.

"I don't owe you a damn thing," she sneered as the perpetrator was taken away. "I'm not some brat who has to steal for a living anymore the way you do. Deal with it. I'm part of the Rouge now and if you want my time you'll have to pay for it."

They never came for her again, though the single episode left her with a bruised face and a twisted wrist. She slept in the dancehall that night, too weary to go home, and several of the other dancers stayed with her. Harold, before leaving, patted her on the clean side of her face and had more blankets brought over. They spent the night stripped to their shifts and nesting like birds into the extra quilts, passing the time by swapping stories and hairstyles.

Odd that a roomful of courtesans (not whores, they were quick to inform her) should feel so comfortable. Petite Princesse was telling some Bavarian folktale and Spanish, transfixed out of her usual aloofness, had dropped an awkward blotch of henna on Historic's brassy head. Mome Fromage had fallen asleep and Nini was stealing chocolates from the box beside her. Babydoll had curled up like her namesake on Garden Girl's lap as the latter twisted and tied the blonde's hair with rags. Juno muttered that she felt like she was back at boarding school, where girls would sneak into each other's rooms to read romances and eat sweets. Travesty made some horrible pun about schoolgirls and Nini chucked a chocolate at her.

Odd that a dancehall should seem like heaven after so many years on the streets. No running, no stealing, no living each day on a few coins and the promise of another night-swathed client who could just as well be hiding a knife as a purse. Lynette reconsidered the last thought, decided courtesans and thieves were quite similar on that point, decided she didn't particularly care. At least a courtesan was a person. Beneath her bruises, the magpie giggled to herself and fell asleep.


	9. Tartan

Disclaimer: Moulin Rouge belongs to the incomparable Baz et al. Harold Zidler belongs to himself. His family tree has been mutilated to suit my fancy; for this, I apologize.

Warning: Mild religion-based angst, if that sort of thing bothers you. Other than that, it's a walk in the park compared to, say, Tarot's tale. Speaking of which, does anyone suppose I should bump this thing up to an R rating? Given all the nasty subject matter I've crammed into it, I've been wondering.

Notes: This fic isn't dead yet, sorry to disappoint you.

* * *

When she strolled into the dressing room, wearing a ladylike gray suit and the sweet smile of a convent girl, the others almost didn't believe it. Fans, combs, and powder puffs froze in midair; words and laughs trailed off into nothingness; and several pairs of impeccably arched eyebrows simultaneously strained towards their respective hairlines.

The stranger didn't seen at all disconcerted. "How do you do?" she said, inclining her head and sounding as if she had stepped into an elite salon instead of a nightclub.

Pearly Queen was the first to break the silence, with a snickered, "The chapel's down two streets, dearie."

"Then I'll be certain to avoid it, thank you."

That earned her a few small laughs. Harlequin, ever solicitous, seemed ready to go over and introduce herself, but Sonata quickly caught her arm. Exchanging glances and whispers, the others turned back to the mirrors. For another long moment, there was silence. Then Tattoo, still in her undergarments, deliberately rose and stalked across the room for her dress, an action that never failed to intimidate tenderfoots. This one didn't so much as blink. Tigress, stretching on the floor until her forehead was at her heels, received the same lack of a reaction. Schoolgirl snorted. "What is she, blind?"

Unruffled, the newcomer sat down, removed her hat (simple but expensive, and topped with a delicate spray of feathers), and ran an impeccably gloved hand through her loose chestnut curls. "It's lovely to meet you all, too. Harold says I'm to use a spare dress until I've been here long enough to have my own made. Could someone please tell me where to find one?"

Arabia smirked disbelievingly. "Harold?"

The girl looked at her. "Yes, that's his name. And yours is Fanchon, isn't it? He's told me about you all."

Arabia blinked, but quickly regained her composure. "You've talked to Harold?"

She smiled blandly. "Of course. I'm his favorite niece."

* * *

It was less impressive than it sounded, but she had always enjoyed subtly shocking people, drawing attention to herself without appearing to do it intentionally. The youngest of five children, there was little to that particular art she hadn't learned. Clamoring with the masses never worked; refinement was out of place and therefore more noticeable. And, she privately believed, more entertaining.

She supposed she had her mother to thank, indirectly, for that ability. Mum seldom spoke above a murmur or had a logical look on her face, but she still knew how to catch people's interest. Not the conventional British housewife, she carried the air of a gothic heroine about her and a French accent she kept her entire life. Added to that, she lived in an almost perpetual state of dissipation, easily distracted by whatever idiosyncratic vestige of thought was nibbling at her mind, never caring a whit if she left went to town in a housedress with her hair spilling loose of its knot. A dreamer to the bone, she had met her husband in France and exuberantly left to marry him.

He was the one from Scotland and nothing like his wife. They were deemed a strange pair, him so grounded and her forever floating above it, but they balanced one another other well. Father had a jovial voice and strong arms—strong enough to toss a child of ten in the air and catch her with a laugh—and a head for making sense of both the figures that flowed in from his family's factories and the whims of his wife. Mum, while she could cook and sew as well as any other woman, was easily sidetracked by her thoughts and tended to leave the more tangible tasks for the maids to finish. One thing she was unfailingly partial to was reading, whatever material was available—second-rate romances, obscure treatises, classics six inches thick.

Naturally, it contributed greatly to her already fertile imagination. Mum had thought it romantic to name her children fancifully, and had spent many an hour scrawling lists of outlandish appellations drawn from flora, fauna, and deities hailing from every corner of the globe. It had been agreed previously that she could name the girls what she pleased if her husband was left to the boys. Which was why the children came to be called Primavera, John, Peter, Michael, and Penthea, the last being herself. Father managed to find ways around it, even so.

"Vera, Penny, have you been good girls today?" calling them when he came through the door each evening. "That's it, then. Give a dance, eh?"

And they would, Primavera perfectly, Penthea still spinning with childish clumsiness. They were what Mum dreamily called warrior dances, the same steps Father's ancestors had danced through in order to celebrate victories after striping their faces with paint and riding to claim their brides, burning villages as they came. Penny was never sure that was accurate, as was often the case with Mum's explanations, but she liked the dancing well enough. It was different and far more fun than the stuffy waltzes other girls learned. When Primavera was too old to find any fun in it, Penny did them alone, showing off whenever they went visiting friends in York or Mum's brother in Paris or Dad's parents in Edinburgh. John sometimes joked about taking her all over the world and showing her off as Scotland's youngest living warrior.

When the fire came, that was the end of that plan, and any others.

Mum was half-sleeping by the fireplace and no doubt assumed the conflagration was only another part of her dream-world. When she finally came to, the pages of her book were blackening in her lap. Penny heard her screams through the haze of a dream, and disregarded them—they couldn't be real; Mum never raised her voice. Only when she grew thirsty enough in her dream to wake up for a drink did it become clear something was wrong. The darkness seemed thicker than usual, and Penny sat for a few perplexed moments on the edge of her bed before realizing the thickness was smoke and it was choking her.

Her first impulse then was to believe she was still dreaming. Hoping for clarification, she went staggering into Primavera's room and a coughed on a smoke-clogged yell when her watering eyes distinguished the shape of her sister crumpled on the floor, ringed in flames. When she unthinkingly grabbed for her the older girl's arm, wanting something, anything, to hold onto, all she got was a handful of ashes. By that point she was half- fainting from the smoke and half-blinded by her tears, and when she groped her way downstairs she fell halfway. The parlor was an inferno, and she ran through it without hesitation to get to the door. Flames caught her nightgown; she screamed when she felt their white-hot fingers lashing her legs. Somehow, she made it out the door, then plunged into the night and ran herself senseless until a neighbor found her.

_Oil lamp_, was the first thing she heard once she was back in her right mind, bandages swathed halfway up both legs, hands too tremulous to hold a teacup. _Must have tipped over, they never had a chance, miracle the youngest had come out alive. Terrible shame, best contact the closest relations._

She asked after the ashes that had been clenched in her fist, begging that they be saved. They gave them to her without asking why, and then handed her Mum's salvaged rosary, one of a mere handful of such things, and told her to keep God close. It made Penny think. Before, she had loved the crisp order and sanctity of the church, sometimes toying with the idea of becoming a nun—the only downside to it being the lack of opportunities for dancing. But it was thanks to the Lord that she was left with nothing but a pocketful of ashes and a few dance steps. An indignant voice in her mind pettishly declared there was no earthly reason she should want to be close to someone so cruel.

They gave her comfort and she gave them smiles, but the question continued to tear at her.

_The Lord is testing you. _

_You'll be reunited someday. _

_Keep on being a good girl._

She ran through every sympathetic saying she had ever heard from minister, teacher, or other all-knowing adult, and threw each one aside in turn.

It bothered her to no end. Her family was gone and God hadn't lifted a finger to soften the blow. The good, she had always learned, were rewarded, and she was sure she had never done anything nearly wicked enough to merit such harsh treatment. She wondered for s short time if the entire ordeal really was a test, and if maybe she would earn sainthood by it someday. Then she remembered sainthoods were only bestowed posthumously, and vehemently decided there was no way she would suffer through life for God so He could glorify her once she was done with it.

_I'll throw it back at Him, show how His test went wrong. So listen, God, I'll be a good girl, good as I was before, but I won't go out of my way for you, no more praying or groveling. I did all that before and you smote me anyway, so if I'm to get in your good graces now it'll have to be for who I am, not how much I curry favor with the Lord._

She excelled during her time at the school Father's parents sent her to, although she skipped mass regularly no matter what the consequences. When she came of age, she claimed the inheritance Father's family had been holding for the past several years and, after several days of careful consideration, parted with nearly all of it. She came close to contributing to the church, but then restrained herself and—look, I'm still a good person—had a school and an orphanage established instead. Then she sat down and wrote a letter to Mum's brother Harold in Paris.

_I don't care to spend my life shut on a shelf in some countryside convent. My oldest brother used to tease about taking me around to dance, and I'd much prefer that to wasting away behind a pew._

And now she was at the Rouge, being put up in the house of an uncle she hadn't seen since she was nine. Since then, their only contact had been through occasional letters and the regular payments she received from Mum's family. He was as charismatic as she remembered him, and had opened a larger, more successful dancehall than the one he had operated during her last visit. It struck her as funny, initially, that he seemed as different from his sister as was humanly possible. Mum had dreamed for everything out of reach, while he jumped for it without hesitation. After the shock wore off, she noticed that, in her own way, Mum had been, if not as ambitious, at least as fanciful as her brother. Surely the inside of her head had been as vibrant as the Moulin Rouge; Harold was just resolute enough to uphold his dreams outside of his mind as well as within.

Her first meeting with the rest of the girls was as awkward as she had imagined, but she managed to gain the upper hand by identifying them all based on descriptions Harold had given her. When a few of them seemed to doubt her claim of being his niece and pointed out that Harold had never mentioned her before, she serenely explained she had been in Britain tending to family affairs. When they found out she had relinquished her inheritance and begun life at the dancehall voluntarily, they thought her adventurous but crazy, which made for several interesting conversations.

She was not a born dancer, and felt she had to work harder than everyone else in order to prove she was a good performer and not just Zidler's niece. "I'm used to different dances," she muttered in embarrassment on her second day, after failing to learn the steps of a new sequence.

"Are you a ballerina?" piped an angelic-looking girl. "So'm I. Maybe we can get an act together."

"I'm not a ballet dancer. I do warrior dances."

Once the snickers began to rise around her, Penny had twirled Mum's rosary back into her pocket launched into a demonstration. She ended with a conventional curtsey and walked out of the room before anyone had a chance to speak. Afterward, she noticed with quiet satisfaction that the others treated her like a true dancer instead of an addled leech.

When she decided to have her first dress made, she sat up for over an hour with Harold trying to decide what sort of persona she wanted to assume. He ran through each dancer's role, in the hope she would catch an idea from one of them, but she only frowned. "Gypsy, Spanish, Arabia," she muttered. "Horses aren't for me, no; none of this prancing around pretending to be Arabians or Andalusians." But the only gimmick she could come up with was that of a fallen nun, which was scarcely accurate and not particularly appealing. He mentioned, then, that he had heard about her Scottish dances, and Penny had paused in thought.

She took a gamble when she made up her mind to have a tartan dress made. No one had ever had a similar costume, and there was no guarantee the look would be a success, but in the end it concurrently triumphed and secured her position. In addition, it was a tribute to her father, and it let her wear thick socks that covered the burn scars on her legs far better than stockings. She kept a purse, a sporran, tied at her waist, and sewed into the lining all that was left of home.

"Do you keep anything in here?" Harlequin asked her once, lifting the pouch from where it lay on a dressing table.

"Not really," Penny answered blithely, watching the other dancer's reaction through casually downcast eyes. "Just some of my sister's ashes sewed into the lining."

Harlequin blanched and put it down.

Penny, smiling inwardly at her ability to underhandedly unnerve even in the hard-edged environment of the Rouge, picked it up and pretended to scrutinize the stitches. "Drat. It needs mending. Don't mind if a bit slips out, will you?" She made sure to smile warmly at the other girl before leaving the room.

_Still a good person._


	10. Juno

For Norah, who has the constitution of an angel, the patience of a saint, and a strange fascination with gold teeth. 

All due apologies to Baz, ballerinas, and Johnny Depp.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Photographs, Ceciliane's parents liked to believe, never lied. They kept a table for their own, glossed and glassy and neatly placed in gilded frames. There the gold-rimmed pictures sat complacently, showing the whole world they were representative of good, upright people—a dignified couple and their three sweet daughters. It remained an idyllic addition to the sitting room until the first sweet daughter upset the table because the second sweet daughter was chasing her and the third sweet daughter had caught her around one ankle with a hair ribbon. Julienne had groaned, Ceciliane had apologized, and Aveline had fixed her replaced her ribbons and tripped off to play. All three of them were sent to their rooms to squabble behind closed doors under the housemaids' supervision.

Anything could spark an altercation. Later that same day, there was music in rain, and Ceciliane, abandoning her book, went prancing through it like a street urchin, fancying she could twirl between the raindrops themselves. Baby-faced Aveline, clasping fleshy hands together as if in prayer, watched her with narrowed eyes. "Maman doesn't like it when you dance like that."

Ceciliane ignored her for several blissful seconds before replying, "Why should it bother her?" and accidentally beginning the age-old argument for the umpteenth time.

"It reflects badly on the family," the cherubic girl parroted. "You aren't a peasant."

"Leave off on it." Hatless, hair plastered into dark-gold rivulets down her cheeks, Ceciliane sought an amnesty. "You try it and then tell me it's not wonderful."

She was almost too surprised to smile when Aveline, her face assuming a childish expression of wonder, stepped outside. "That's it," she urged, collecting herself. "Now try a turn, like they teach at your lessons…" There was a solitary sweetwater moment in which Aveline's chubby fingers clasped Ceciliane's fine-boned hand and the two of them twirled together in a careless waltz, skirts dripping, curls drooping, and Ceciliane was laughing inside her head and wondering how she could ever have hated her younger sister. Then Aveline kicked her in the shin and darted back indoors, calling for Maman.

So it went. Taken in every time. "Why believe the brat?" Julienne demanded, flouncing into their room as Ceciliane sat shivering in a dressing gown. "You know she'll make trouble whenever there's an opportunity, no matter how much you may hope for her to act differently. And you with your dancing again. Don't you know by now that nothing but ill will comes of that? Wise up, do." 

Ceciliane lifted one small shoulder, not looking at her sister. "I'm aware that hope can be futile, but that's no reason to forsake it. It's in everything, if you have the patience to seek it out." Julienne left in sneering exasperation, muttering about how candy-coated rationality never did a thing for anyone and sounding for all the world like their father. Ceciliane stayed behind watching the rain on the windowpanes, liquid sapphires on crystallized cobwebs.  

She had not danced from the day she was born, but, to the despair of her family, it certainly appeared otherwise. Maman in particular was adamant on this front; as a result, Ceciliane had learned long ago what was expected of her. She was, as Papa was proud of stating, a girl of good standing. Girls of good standing learned their geography and mathematics and Latin without so much as a whisper of apathy. They played drizzly melodies on their varnished pianos and memorized the kings of France while smiling behind lacy fans. They learned enough of dancing in order to fulfill their societal role, but no more. ­Girls of good standing did not devote themselves to unsuitable pastimes, of which dance was one. ­­Ceciliane did well at her lessons, but fell short via a dedication to feeding her passion rather than tamping it down. Maman considered it vulgar. Too much of an interest in dance was improper; it was what made showgirls and circus performers of otherwise decent young women. She had threatened many times to put an end to Ceciliane's lessons, and each time Ceciliane had cried and pleaded her into changing her mind. 

It wasn't so much the lessons, but the fact that no one could scold her there, that she clung to. Music came to her unbidden, and her body reacted as if there was no other possible option—dancing to the tune of the clock chimes, to Julienne's piano sessions, to the rhymes Aveline sang to her dolls—but only in the studio was she free from disapproving words and glances. When the hatchet-faced dancing master did snap a criticism from between his rusty teeth, it hurt and frightened her more deeply than the other students. They danced because it was required of them; a few sharp words here or there meant nothing. But for Ceciliane, they meant the possibility of disaster. If even the dancing master started viewing her with a disapproving eye, there would truly be no haven left for her. When it happened, she took to running into the dressing room under the pretense of having forgotten a scarf, then taking a few moments to compose herself and returning to her lesson with such a vengeance that, by the time it was over, the world itself seemed to be made of music.

Too passionate to be the icy and dignified older sister, too sensitive to be the enfant terrible—not that she could ever beat out Aveline for the position—it was difficult for Ceciliane to place herself. More well-read than most young women her age, she occasionally found solace by thinking of life as though it was a book, dreamily curling up in bed and viewing her own life as if she were reading it. But after a time, events came to a head and her mental mythology came crashing down at reality's feet. Crashing much in the same manner as her favorite music box, when Aveline, all spiteful smiles and strawberry ringlets, hurled it against a wall. In hindsight, Ceciliane considered it symbolic of the end of that particular phase in her life. At the time, she had shrieked like a demon and refused to leave her room until her sister apologized. She had seen it as a practical response: shy Ceciliane finally taking a stand. Her parents had seen it as melodramatics brought on by too much time on her own, and, in spite of her protestations, had sent her to boarding school in the hope she would become more sensible in a different environment.

Ceciliane, never an extrovert, was miserable and hated herself for it. She weighed matters in her mind over and over again. Her family had sent her away, it was true, but only because they hoped to better her. They could have heard her out, it was true, but at least she had the opportunity to attend an affluent school many others could never afford. "Everyone," she concluded at length, addressing her lacy fan, "is entitled to misery, just as everyone is entitled to hope. The rich can feel awful, as long as they recognize the privileges they have." 

That doctrine firmly in mind, she took nothing for granted and cried in her sleep. She kept up with her studies and lost herself in dance lessons once again. The dancers there primarily trundled halfheartedly about, preferring to gossip. Some, however, were different, and noticed Ceciliane just enough to form their own opinions of her. Harsh-faced Marie-Louise took to laughing at her for continuing to dance once the music had stopped, and gray-eyed Jacinthe would bare star-white teeth at her when the dancing master gave her praise. Ceciliane "forgot" a scarf only once, and never did so again once she saw the triumphant look her flight brought to Jacinthe's face. Half retaliatory, half timidly, she stepped out of herself, offering aid to the younger girls. Finding it welcome, she mustered up the courage to ask after the elder and was snubbed for being uppity and trying to weasel her way into the dancing master's good grace. When passed over completely for a part in the ballet, she saw Marie-Louise share a knowing smile with Jacinthe, and knew then for certain that the world was as cruel and ugly as Julienne had always told her. Face white and eyes red, she packed her bags and left the school without a word. 

She never knew what she was looking for. Flying through the city on the adrenaline of adolescent wrath, waiting for the ground to swallow her whole, unconsciously walking in time to the street musicians' songs. At one point, she flung down her suitcases in sheer frustration and danced like a mad dervish, not caring a scintilla who saw her or, when a small crowd of onlookers gathered, what they said. If he had not found her, maybe she would have returned the school and learned whatever place the rest of the world was so determined to provide for her. Maybe she would have written her parents and learned to live under the almighty thumb that ruled over all girls of good standing. Maybe she would have done neither. As it was, he did find her, and from then on nothing at all was under her control.

A tear was making its way from one already raw eye when she prepared to gather her things again. The crowd dispersed on whispered wings. A single man remained, wearing a suit any gentleman would envy with an air any king would envy, and a peculiar cloak that seemed to be made of all the scarves Ceciliane had never forgotten When she ventured a glance, her first thought was that such a face seemed too striking to ever be concerned with her. But his attention was directed at her alone, dark eyes free of mockery, curved lips free of scorn, one lithe bronze hand holding out a handkerchief, the other gesturing for her to follow. "Here, love," he said quietly, and no one had ever called her love before. She followed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"You're very skilled." His was a soft voice, laced with an unfamiliar conglomeration of accents. His name was Raejs and he seemed to be from everywhere. "I see great potential in you, and believe me when I say I'm no idle spectator. Will you come with me to Hungary and train for my aunt's company?"

Somehow, Ceciliane had unthinkingly agreed to dine at the inn where the stranger was lodging. He had spoken little, mildly introducing himself as a factory owner who was taking leave in order to tend to family affairs, and she had remained too amazed to speak much herself. His question did little to change her state.

Raejs seemed to be wondering if he had made a mistake. "You do dance, correct?"

"Yes!" Ceciliane burst out, a little too quickly. "I mean, I do. I'm," she sat up a little straighter, "a ballet dancer. I have been for years."

The full lips curved into a smile and Ceciliane decided it was indeed possible for her to love something other than the dance. 

Raejs had a story for every occasion and more confidence than she could ever hope for in herself. His tales made her laugh, made her think, and she never once stopped to wonder how many were true. He in turn listened to all she said as if there was nothing more interesting in the entire world. She was never ill at ease with him, although she remained in awe that someone so charming had any reason to care about her at all. Yet, he did, and not once did he ever seem to wish she were different. He appreciated her as she was, and she would have given her soul to keep the feeling that evoked in her. "My name is Ceciliane," she told him when he asked, feeling very silly for not having introduced herself before.

He laughed, amiably enough for her to smile back and richly enough for her to shiver, and took another sip of wine.  "A suitably beautiful name. Greek, isn't it? Means 'blind'," he said, and she had no idea if it was Greek or not, but was unreasonably delighted that he had known the meaning. She felt herself falling in love all over again at that, a marked change from than the stabbing pain she had always felt when pretty, barb-tongued Julienne would say, as a joke, that even though Ceciliane wasn't blind she might as well be, given the way she dreamed so much, always reading or writing, dancing through the corridors with her eyes on something unseen.

"So you will come with me?" he asked again. "T­here are those can make you great."

Ceciliane nearly fainted when he pressed her hand. "Yes," she said. He grinned, and gold flashed before her eyes.

Throughout the encounter she would hear her mother's voice in her head and rejoice in being safely out of her range. It was easy to mock Maman from afar. She could imagine the disapproving words perfectly: _Girls of good standing aren't meant to run off with gypsies they meet on the streets. ­Look out for men whose teeth shine when they bare them in the night, whose kisses taste of danger and wine, when it's impossible to tell which one is headier than the other…_

When strong, elegant hands began tangling through the ribbons at her waist, she forgot about her mother altogether. Ceciliane had never so much as shown her ankles outside of the studio, but hardly thought of it. Life was a book again, an epic with a new character and not enough adjectives to do him justice…beautiful, exotic, fascinating, like India ink and Chinese silk and the spice-scented dust of all the roads in the world. 

//Girls of good standing aren't meant to love men old enough to be their fathers, even if they don't look it, men with eyes that gleam knowingly, men who bow and wink and kiss your cheek as they rob you blind, leaving you in Budapest with stained skirts and empty hands…//

­They stayed the night at the inn and she boarded the train with the buoyancy of the newlywed she wasn't. When he gave her a kiss on the train, she swore again she was in love, and fell asleep with her arm threaded through his. She woke up alone, destitute, and far from home. They threw her off in Budapest, where the rain played a doleful aria in a minor key. 

Initially, Ceciliane played by her strengths and tried to find work as a ballet dancer, but to no avail. Eyes dry, head high, she then did what necessity required of her. Alone and penniless in a foreign land, there was little else to be done. Inside her head, the broken music box creaked out its final notes. 

When she could, she would sneak onto trains, carriages, anything to take her closer to France. More often than not, she gained more bruises than miles from the ventures. She learned how to strut and swagger, and she danced when she had the chance, sneaking into bars and nightclubs to look and listen, then striding in the next day, claiming she knew every dance under the sun and then picking up fast enough to fool everyone. She had vaudeville parts on occasion, assuming role after mediocre role in mismatched pantheons that mixed onstage—Aphrodite, Bacchus, Diana, and Hestia interacting improbably and being corrected in her mind as she mutely danced in the chorus on countless splintery stages. All the same, the classical plays were her favorites, so close to the childish epics she had once fashioned. When Raejs crossed her mind, she channeled her anger into the dance until she could hardly breathe. His face remained behind her eyes nonetheless, seeming to taint the country with false smiles and conniving eyes that were impossible to escape no matter how vehemently she moved. Ceciliane felt she was going mad. 

The taunting face was finally vanquished one night when she was drunk on its shame and mockery. Ceciliane broke into the leading lady's dressing room in a fit of boldness and stole enough costumes to clothe herself and enough jewelry to pawn her way into France. And, with what was left over combined with a month or two of working the Paris streets, to pass herself off as the well-bred ballerina she had once been. Roles at high-class theatres followed, and the corps de ballet was enough to satisfy her. Raejs's visage by than had faded with those of her family, appearing only on moonlight-soaked nights when she could hardly move.  

Silence became her greatest asset. When the other dancers talked to her, she would blush and smile and rarely answer with words. 

"­You can be incredibly naïve," one dancer told her. Ceciliane winced and turned away.

"You're so sweet, so good," another said, after Ceciliane assisted her during rehearsal.  Ceciliane remembered Marie-Louise and lowered her eyes.

"You don't meet many people as nice as you in a world like this," a final girl announced. Ceciliane readjusted the scarf around her neck and tried to remember what Julienne looked like.

For the most part, her success made Ceciliane snicker inside her head, smile shyly, and go back to reading Aeschylus. The epics kept her concentration from wavering. Of all the goddesses, she liked Juno the best: a vengeful queen with the power to drive even Hercules mad, keeping her wits about her while her husband ran amok all over heaven and earth. She was strong, and reminded Ceciliane she was just as strong, even when she felt like the weakest person in the world. The others sometimes chided her for­ staying curled in bed with a book instead of going out to the cafés with them, but she preferred it. And in truth, it was safer that way. The old, cautious Ceciliane couldn't help worrying that someone incriminating might remember her if she dipped into the underworld again. When a former client did approach her, she collapsed into herself, terrified of exposure, not venturing anywhere other than the theatre. Her time was spent in her mind and onstage; she felt fearless only when she danced; food became secondary, sleep only welcome when it was dreamless.

Backstage once, Nicolette, who fancied herself something of a philosopher, turned to the quiet girl: "Everyone has a role in life," she was saying, lacing blood-smeared satin around her ankles. "What is yours? Are you an ingénue? A villainess? A shrew?" 

Ceciliane pliéd, green eyes fixed attentively on the way her fingers grasped the barre, and spoke for the first time in days. "I am a walk-on. I am the muddle-headed knight who chooses the wrong side and dies with the sickening realization of it reflected in his eyes. I am the princess's look-alike serving girl whom the soldiers kill by mistake. I am the messenger who runs his errand and then falls on his sword. I make my mark and go quietly."

The unfamiliar sound of her voice rang true. She did go quietly, then. Juno, just and harsh, unhappy in the heavens. This was not the place for her. It had been once, long ago, but that time had passed. The other dancers found her things piled neatly in the dressing room without so much as a note. A few streets and a lifetime of difference away, Ceciliane began a new dance with nothing but a small smile and the sensation of coming home.


End file.
